INARY METHOD 

ORIGINAL STllDY 
E HISTORICAL SCIENCES, 



UGH FOSTER, Ph.D, 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. | 

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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



THE SEMINARY METHOD. 



THE 



SEMINARY METHOD 

OF 

ORIGINAL STUDY 
IN THE HISTORICAL SCIENCES 

ILLUSTRATED FROM CHURCH HISTORY 



BY 



FRANK HUGH FOSTER, Ph.D. (Leipzig) 

PROFESSOR OF CHURCH HISTORY IN THE THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY AT OBERL1N. 




NEW YORK 
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
I 



<f 



J th e ubiujiy)| 

; OF CONGRESS I 

Copyright, 1888, by 
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS. 



Press of J. J. Little & Co., 
Astor Place. New York. 



Universitatibus 

Harvardiensi et Lipsiensi 

ex animo grato 

hunc libellum 

dedicavi 

Alumnus 



PREFACE. 

THIS little work has grown out of the experiences 
of a practical teacher. It is intended primarily for 
students. It seeks to convey to them that informa- 
tion which they are found to need before they can 
enter upon the work of original study. The " Sem- 
inary " is a new institution in this country, and there 
gather about it no traditions, as about other and 
established methods. Students in general when 
beginning original historical work, are not ready for 
it, as they are for Latin or Chemistry when they 
begin those studies, and this lays limitations upon 
the teacher which he must recognize, and which 
must determine the course of his instruction. The 
student needs to have an introduction to the Sem- 
inary. He needs minute explanations of the 
method in forms which he can employ as models 
till he has gained for himself an independent grasp 
of it. It is the purpose of this book to supply the 
want of such minute instruction. 

More especially for the teacher, but also for the 
student, there have been added some discussions of 
the proper range of this form of study, and of the 

vii 



Vin PREFACE. 

limitations under which it should be conducted in 
our colleges. Lists of topics are also provided. It 
is not supposed that any teacher will use these ex- 
actly as they stand; but they will suggest to him 
profitable lines of instruction in other subjects to 
which his peculiar circumstances may direct him. 
No exhaustive discussion of the " Seminary " as 
found at present in American universities has been 
attempted, for this would be outside the proper 
scope of such a book as this. The examples and 
suggestions that are given in this direction are in- 
tended as hints only. 

A subordinate aim with the writer has been to do 
something to elevate the standard of scholarship in 
our theological seminaries. It is his conviction 
that they need to press forward with other univer- 
sity departments in perfecting their methods and 
in advancing the character of the work they secure 
from their students. They should be not only 
abreast of their compeers, they should even lead 
them. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE. 

Introduction. i 

The term " Historical Sciences." Other sciences have a 
historical side. Range of original study. Its method the 
object of this book. Necessity to Americans of an inde- 
pendent grasp of History. The book suitable for all Sem- 



What History Is 7 

History the explanation of events. Historical causes. His- 
torical effects. Prophetic office of History. External His- 
tory depends upon internal History for its explanation. 
Place of Church History as a science. Original work in a 
Seminary a constant search for causes. 

II. 

The Historical Seminary . . . .14 

Defined by explaining the Seminary for Church History as 
an example. General Histories of the Church. Use of 
them. Do not give an understanding of History. Defini- 
tion of the term •" Sources. " Benefits of this study. Origin 
of the " Seminary." Its definition. Its apartments. Its 
furniture. Library. Methods of instruction. 

III. 

The Necessary Preparation for Seminary 22 
Study 

Members of the Seminary must be picked. Kind of at- 
tainments presupposed. Defects in the classical training of 
ix 



x CONTENTS. 

American students. How they are to be remedied. Learn 
languages by using them. How to read a language. Pos- 
sibility of this. Method of learning the art. Effects of this 
upon the study. Other deficiencies to be overcome. 

IV. 

The Method of Original Study ... 32 

"Orientation." Guide-books. How to open sources. How 
to understand the authors read. Historical imagination. 
Ramification of topics. Parallel and illustrative passages. 
Note-taking. How to trace the ramifications of topics. 
Example. When the student may rely upon other writers. 
What sub-topics are worth following out. Negative results 
valuable. The irrelevant is the logically irrelevant. "Judi- 
cious skipping." Dangers. Finish in work. Value of 
sources considered as testimony. Cross-examination of 
witnesses. Principal frauds already known. Study of the 
literature of the topic. Use of the completed study. 
System of the Seminary. The necessity of a Director. 

V. 
Detailed Examples 52 

I. The significance of the Colloquy at Marburg. II. Diplo- 
matic Relations of the United States with Great Britain, 
1861-65. III. Augustine's Conception of the Constitution 
of the Human Mind. 

VI. 

The Place of Original Study of History 

in a Theological Seminary . . 85 

Is this form of study desirable in an American Theological 
Seminary? The ideal theological education. Men of in- 
dependent power wanted. Adaptability of such a man. 
Call for such men growing louder. Study in the pastorate. 
Room for original study in the theological course. " Sem- 
inaries " wanted in all departments. Need of History. 
Practical methods. Extent of work to be attempted. 
Johns Hopkins University and American Institutional His- 



CONTENTS. x i 

tory. Americans should not continue dependent on Ger- 
many. Work upon American History. Study of the His- 
tory of Doctrine. The New England Theology. Different 
topics for different Seminaries. Co-operation. A National 
Society for the study of American Church History. 

VII. 

The Uses and Limits of the Method in Col- 
leges . . . . . . .102 

Scope of a College. Preparation for Original Work. No 
sacrifice of ordinary Work for the sake of the new Method. 
Prof. Monroe's class in Political Economy. Prof. Adams's 
earliest attempts in the use of the Method. Practice Work. 
Limits of this kind of work in College. Harvard University. 
Lists of topics there used. 

Appendix m 

Lists of Topics and miscellaneous Information and Sugges- 
tions as to Methods. 



Index 127 



THE SEMINARY METHOD. 



INTRODUCTION. 

The " historical sciences " may be defined as 
those sciences into which history enters as an 
integral part. Psychology is not such a science. It 
deals with the present, with facts that are before 
the student at the present time, and which may be 
considered in themselves. Systematic theology is 
not such, for it asks the question, What is the truth, 
not, What have men believed. Political economy 
is an historical science, since many of its problems 
cannot be answered until long lines of historical 
investigation have been pursued, and the experience 
of men on certain subjects definitely ascertained. 
Thus the subject of bimetallism will demand many 
studies as to the historical relations of gold and 
silver in use together as money, before there will be 
any great wisdom for the solution of present prob- 
lems. 

With the non-historical sciences there are often 
connected in the most intimate association, histor- 
ical sciences. Psychology has a most interesting 
and important history of its own. It is also asso- 
ciated with the history of philosophy, a discipline 
still more intimately connected with metaphysics. 



2 THE SEMINAR Y ME THOD. 

Systematic theology will be without one of the 
important arguments by which it is to determine 
what that truth which it exclusively seeks is, unless 
it hear the voice of history. The history of institu- 
tions is of the utmost value to present politics. The 
range of the subjects which involve history and 
thus require at some point the application of the 
historical method, is therefore greatly increased, if 
one takes a broad view of the field of knowledge. 

In all these disciplines the method of original 
study is the same as that practised in historical 
seminaries. It differs as to details, but it is the 
same in its principles. It is the application of the 
laws of inductive logic, and these are the same every- 
where. It differs in the contrivances for getting at 
the facts, as these differ in their nature ; but when 
the facts are obtained, they are treated in the same 
way, whatever the science. 

But, wide as is the scope of the historical sciences, 
as thus conceived, the scope of the seminary method 
is wider. It may be employed wherever inductive 
logic is applicable. It is therefore applicable wher- 
ever reasoning is employed to secure progress in 
knowledge, for this is always gained by the use of 
inductive logic. It may be used in Latin ; for here 
there are important linguistic problems yet to be 
solved, and also questions properly historical, to be 
answered only out of the Latin originals. Exegesis 
has its inductive problems, biblical theology also ; 
psychology must proceed after the method of ob- 
servation and induction; and as for the natural 
sciences, they have now been taught by the labora- 



INTRODUCTION. 3 

tory, which is the seminary method, for many 
years. 

This breadth of range which has been given to 
the seminary method in the practice of some of the 
most progressive teachers, is justified by the nature 
of the case. No man is truly a student of any branch 
until he is an original student. He is never fully 
interested in study till he begins to pursue it for 
himself by original methods. Hence it is the duty 
of all institutions which will fit their students for 
the highest intellectual service in the world, to train 
them in this method. Whatever their particular 
line of study may be, the opportunity is open before 
them. No branch of learning is shut out from the 
benefit of the enthusiasm which will come from 
such study. It is not meant that all students should 
be thus taught from the beginning of their public 
education, for this is a manifest impossibility and 
impropriety. There must be an age of dependent 
study before that of independent. A man must 
walk before he can run. It would be a great error 
to introduce independent work at too early a point 
in a course of study. But everything which is 
worthy of being studied at all, has some stage at 
which it can properly be put into the seminary, to 
the great profit of both teacher and pupil. 

It is in this broad sense that the present book 
would treat the seminary. A method is the object 
of the chapters that follow. The discussion is lim- 
ited for convenience' sake to the historical sciences, 
and thereby the necessity of considering too wide a 
variety of methods is avoided. Something must be 



4 THE SEMINAR Y ME THOD. 

allowed to the necessities of the case in the way of 
limitations of the illustrations, and in the form of 
the whole. The writer's relation to a theological 
seminary, and the present and prospective require- 
ments of his own pupils have naturally led him to 
select his illustrations principally from church his- 
tory. But essentially all that is to be said will apply 
with suitable modifications to any historical science 
as well as to church history, and to every other pos- 
itive and advancing science, though less directly. 
If the student or the teacher has really seized the 
idea of the method, he will easily make the neces- 
sary modifications for the special study he has in 
mind himself. 

Before we plunge into the midst of our theme, 
however, let us pause a moment to note how pecul- 
iarly necessary the original study of the various sub- 
jects which may be handled in a historical manner, 
is to the American student. We are in a new world 
in many respects. With a different form of govern- 
ment from any known in the Old World, with a pop- 
ulation heterogeneous and daily growing more so, 
with a territory as large as that of all Europe, it is 
evident to the most superficial thinker that we shall 
have very different problems to solve from those 
which history brings before us in the finished rec- 
ords of the civilized peoples. Histories written by 
men whose minds were under the influence of the 
monarchical forms of government under which they 
lived, will have but little real light to shed upon 
those questions which are now pressing with fresh 
force upon our attention, as to the limits which 



INTRODUCTION. 5 

must be set to the power of combination for pur- 
poses of monopolizing trade, and how far our sys- 
tem of leaving great undertakings to individual 
enterprise is to be modified by the interference of 
the government. What analogies will assist us from 
the history of a country which never had a compe- 
tent revenue, to determine what is to be done with 
our surplus? It is doubtless true that we need to 
learn from the united experience of the race, if we 
are to avoid repeating old blunders, and go on to a 
larger success than has yet been achieved. But we 
cannot find what we want, written out for our in- 
struction in the histories as they stand. We must 
be able to make our own history as we need it, 
must understand how to interrogate history for our- 
selves, if we are to have the benefit of intelligible 
replies. Or, in other words, we must have just that 
training which the historical seminary is devised to 
give us. 

To be sure, we have always done this as well 
as we could. Our Declaration of Independence, 
which has an air of so great newness and philosoph- 
ical empiricism, really rested upon clear and pro- 
found knowledge of what the past was, and what it 
meant. The same class of men, when they came 
to prepare the Constitution, brought all the light 
which they could find in the experience of mankind 
to their help. But the conditions of life are now 
growing more complex. We need even more skill- 
ful workmen in politics and commerce than we 
needed at the beginning. We cannot safely leave 
the supply of them in sufficient numbers to the 



5 THE SEMINAR Y ME THOD, 

somewhat rare occurrence of superior genius, which 
shall, uneducated and untrained, be able to devise 
methods and solve difficulties by native force of 
intellect. As in all departments training is recog- 
nized to be the need of the times, so emphatically 
is training necessary in original historical study. 

Such then is our theme, and such its scope. Let 
us now address ourselves to the question: How 
shall the student conceive, and how prosecute the 
method of original study in the historical sciences ? 



I. 

WHAT HISTORY IS. 

HISTORY is the explanation of events. Annals, 
which merely record events, can only form the basis 
upon which history rests. History is a science, 
which, like every other science, takes the facts 
peculiar to its sphere, reduces them to order, and 
gives them their due explanation. The understand- 
ing of history is the understanding of this explana- 
tion. 

What is meant by " explanation " here is just 
what is meant by the term in any other inductive 
science, viz., the exhibition of the significance of 
the event as seen in its causes and its effects. 
When we read history, therefore, we have not 
understood the subject, if we have gained merely a 
knowledge of the facts. We know little of the Ref- 
ormation if we have learned that it began with a 
certain Luther, who in 15 17 posted certain theses, 
in 1 52 1 defied empire and emperor at Worms, was 
gathered to his fathers after a wonderful extension 
of his peculiar doctrines in 1546, and thus escaped 
the horror of beholding his cause prostrated, and 
his prince a prisoner of the emperor in 1547. We 
must ask what it was which led him to post his 
theses, what gave him the more than human cour- 
age he exhibited at Worms, how the emperor came 

7 



5 THE SEMINAR V ME THOD. 

to delay so long before attacking with military force 
a cause so hated by him as the Lutheran, how the 
cause prostrated at Muhlberg came to rise again, 
and what it has since done, before we can claim to 
understand the Reformation, and thus have an his- 
torical knowledge of it. History rests on a knowl- 
edge of the facts which holds them in a perfect 
mastery, but until it has risen to the work of com- 
paring, combining, and interpreting them, it has not 
completed its task. 

It becomes important, then, to understand what 
historical causes are. The term is used loosely for 
causes, antecedents, and conditions alike. The 
causes of the Nicene Creed are the necessary ten- 
dency of the human mind towards reflection, pro- 
ducing prolonged attention to the doctrine of God ; 
the desire of Constantine to unify the empire about 
a united church as a center ; the teaching of the 
Scriptures ; the deep convictions and commanding 
personality of Athanasius ; the council ; etc., etc. 
A cause of the triumph of Holland over Spain in 
the Eighty. Years War was the geography of the 
country ; of the emigration of the pilgrims to Mas- 
sachusetts, the plantation of Virginia. Thus all 
that went before a given event, and all that accom- 
panied it, may enter into its cause, however remote 
apparently. The Thirty Years War in Germany 
was lighted by sparks from the Eighty Years War 
in Holland, the French from the American Revolu- 
tion. 

The chief significance of an event, however, is in 
what it does itself. Its effects are more interesting 



WHA T HIS TOR Y IS. g 

than its causes, and, indeed, the tracing out of the 
causes derives its greatest consequence from the 
light it casts on the effects. Given the English 
independence of spirit, the composite state of the 
church in Elizabeth's time, her system of enforced 
conformity, and the progressive study of divine 
truth by the clergy, — what will result in the shape 
of ecclesiastical life ? Given the conjunction of rigid 
Scotch old-school Presbyterianism and free New 
England new-school Congregationalism in one 
ecclesiastical body in the years 1826-37, — what will 
evoke harmony out of the increasing confusion ? 
History actually answers such questions for us. If 
we are wise in tracing the connection of effect and 
cause backwards from 1837 to 1826, we learn the 
potent force stored up in the various events which 
led to the great disruption of the Presbyterian 
Church in the year 1837, and thus we gain the 
power of estimating the probable results of similar 
causes if we meet them in history elsewhere. 

And hence arises what may be called the pro- 
phetic office of history, by which it throws upon the 
path before us the light transmitted from the past. 
As the matured and digested experience of the 
race, history is the guide of man amid the perplexi- 
ties that beset everything that he undertakes. As 
such, it renders its chief practical service. The 
study of history, the understanding of its explana- 
tions, must, therefore, teach us to hear and appreci- 
ate its prophecy. 

Doubtless the most fascinating topics with which 
history deals, are those great public events in which 



I0 THE SEMINARY METHOD. 

the principal lines of human activity meet, and the 
dearest and most tremendous interests of man are 
decided. The shock of battle at Leipsic in 1813, 
when for three days Napoleon withstood the allied 
armies of Russia, Austria, and Germany, when the 
French troops did prodigies of valor, charging at 
one time all day upon lines that filled up as soon as 
broken, and another day holding at night the little 
village which they had lost at noon, though feeling 
that they were already beaten, and when the prog- 
ress of the allies was like the rising of the tide, may 
excite the enthusiasm, and call out the highest de- 
scriptive powers of the historian, as well as arouse the 
liveliest interest of his reader. Yet since history is 
the explanation of events, that scene, however viv- 
idly it may be painted, will fail to exercise its full 
power except he before whom it is unrolled, be pre- 
pared by the study of the long line of events cul- 
minating in, and resulting from it, to estimate its 
significance for the peoples of Europe. The lofty 
aspirations for human rights which sought to obtain 
their permanent gratification by the French Revo- 
lution ; the rise of the Napoleonic empire ; the skill- 
ful disintegration of Germany ; the fall of Prussia ; 
the significance of an imperial French domination 
in Europe ; the spirit of grand enthusiasm for native 
land roused in Germany by Stein ; the religious 
feeling which after the battle wrote the inscription 
on the battle monument, " The Lord is a man of 
war, LORD is his name " ; the progress of the Ger- 
man nation to an united empire based upon the 
government of a parliament ; the hand that even 



WHA T HIS TOR Y IS. T j 

Napoleon had in this result ; and many other lines 
of policy, courses of public sentiment, or fates of 
great efforts, must be understood in their relations 
to the desperate combat of that bloody field, before 
it is fully comprehended. And thus, not only in 
such a case as this, but in all other examples of that 
more striking line of external events with which 
history deals, the careful student is called away from 
the din of war, or whatever attracts his attention 
most at first, to the course of human thought, or 
the development of some great moral movement, or 
to some ancient institution or immortal and domi- 
nating idea, as the key of the explanation, and thus 
the truly interesting thing. So history, in its devel- 
opment as a science, has come to deal more and 
more with the internal facts of the life of man. 

This idea finds a further exemplification in church 
history. A proper view of this branch will give it 
a place among the more significant departments of 
general history. Inasmuch as it is the history of an 
institution which has embodied the chief intellectual 
and moral movement of man, it deals with these 
internal facts, and indeed with the most interesting 
and valuable among them. In a certain sense it is 
an epitome of all history. It, too, has its external 
and internal side, as it deals with the facts of the 
growth, organization, relations to the state, refor- 
mation, etc., of the church, or with the unfolding 
of the thought of man as to God and duty. There 
is church law, church finance, a monarchical, an 
oligarchical, a democratic form of church govern- 



12 



THE SEMINARY METHOD. 



ment : there are even church wars, as well as secular 
wars, government, and the like. 

To all these departments the work of the church 
history seminary may be applied, but in each of 
them the student must be mindful of the nature of 
the science as a science of causes. There is no place 
where he can rest quietly with the mere facts with- 
out any attempt at explanation. This is not true 
in even the history of doctrine. The students of 
church history and of the history of philosophy 
have here exactly the same problems before them. 
It is not enough to know that Descartes began with 
his Cogito, ergo stun, but the cause of his doubt 
must be sought in the failure of all philosophic 
speculation resting upon authority in the period of 
scholasticism. Why also, having escaped dogma- 
tism at one point, he fell so completely into it at 
another by accepting the principle of causality with- 
out an apparent inquiry as to the justification of so 
doing, is also a question which the student must 
at least ask himself, whether he is able to answer it 
successfully or not. And, if he knows enough to 
know that Augustine had in his Sifallor, sum, the 
same struggle with scepticism, and came to the 
same result, an interesting line of inquiry will be 
opened to him which he will not feel justified in neg- 
lecting, till he knows how it came that Scholas- 
ticism forgot the Augustinian suggestion of the 
critical method, and left it to be half re-discovered 
by Descartes. 

So when the topic of Arianism, for example, is 
given to a student of church history, he has not 



WHA T HIS TOR Y IS. 



13 



studied this subject properly till he has got a view 
of the causes of Arianism, and of the Council of 
Nice, and of the subsequent conflicts which issued 
in the victory of the Nicene doctrine. Indeed, in 
the fullest sense, Arianism is not understood till it 
is traced through Socinianism down to modern 
Unitarianism. And at every point of this progress, 
the same questions as to causes and results reap- 
pear. 



II. 

THE HISTORICAL SEMINARY. 

THE general idea of the historical seminary is 
already before us, and we have considered how 
broad is its scope. But we have not stopped in 
the haste of preliminary discussion, to gain a de- 
tailed view of its more exact problem and of the 
fruits we are to expect from its successful operation. 
Let us therefore pause, and partially retrace our 
steps, till we have set the precise nature of the in- 
stitution clearly before ourselves. We shall do this 
by seeking an answer to the question, What is a 
seminary for church history ? 

• The history of the Christian church is but par- 
tially written in books accessible to the American 
student. Indeed, it is but partially written at best, 
and would require for its adequate presentation a 
library rather than a manual of a few volumes. 
For the ancient church Neander's and Schaff's his- 
tories are our chief reliance, the former more pro- 
found and minute, the latter more intelligible, and 
by means of its better arrangement, and its care- 
fully selected bibliographies, more available. For 
the modern church there is no corresponding work. 
Kurtz, a German work, the latest edition of which 
is not accessible in English, is the best general guide 

14 



THE HISTORICAL SEMINARY. 



15 



for the whole field, and comes down to the present 
decade. Fisher, with its bibliography in the newer 
issues, makes a much briefer but a most judicious 
and admirable guide. 

The proper use of such histories as these is in 
acquiring a general and comprehensive knowledge 
of the field as a whole. They present in a useful 
form the results of extended explorations in every 
direction. Here we learn what there is to know, 
and in general what is known. They are indispen- 
sable and invaluable. Their full worth is appre- 
ciated by no one better than by the original student 
who seems to depend on them the least. From 
them alone a respectable and very useful knowledge 
of the subject may be obtained, but not such a 
control or appreciation of it as the writer desires for 
the readers of this book. This is reserved for him 
who in some limited field at least has made original 
studies for himself, and become not a mere reader, 
but also in some sense a writer of history. As the 
student who has merely read descriptions of chemi- 
cal reagents and their effects upon one another, 
does not understand them as does he who has also 
seen them, and putting them into new combina- 
tions, has watched them developing new properties, 
so the historical student needs to see the simple, 
unco-ordinated facts of history, and himself seek in 
their combination the explanation of some myste- 
rious event, before he can fully understand the labors 
of other men. Thus he who has learned what his- 
tory is by practical constructive labors in the field 
of history, is prepared for the general reading of 



1 6 THE SEMINA R Y ME THOD, 

history as no one else can be. He has himself felt 
the thrill of discovery, and sympathizes with the 
enthusiasm of another. He has perceived the limi- 
tations under which the historian labors, and knows 
how to estimate his results. He has learned how 
to use historical results, and therefore as he reads 
what others have prepared for him, he assimilates 
their material, and fits it into the edifice of knowl- 
edge as no one else can. 

By original sources of history we mean the testi- 
mony of the original witnesses to the facts.* For 
political history they are statutes, treaties, re- 
ports of departments of government, correspon- 
dence of eminent diplomatic characters, commercial 
statistics, etc. In church history they are the 
writings of the Fathers, as contained, for example, 
in the " Patrologia of Migne " ; the acts and de- 
crees of councils, as contained in " Mansi " ; the origi- 
nal depositories of church doctrine, as the " Loci of 
Melancthon," or the " System of Hopkins." De- 
crees, reports, minutes, letters, monuments, works of 
Christian art, churches, etc., etc., may be added. 
You wish, for example, to study the doctrinal his- 
tory of the Synod of Dort. You may read some 
essay upon it, like that in Herzog's EncyclopcEdie ; 
but this is not a study from the sources. These are 
the " Remonstrance " itself ; the works of Armin- 
ius ; of his contemporaries and friends, like Epis- 
copius ; his letters ; the " Contra-remonstrance " ; 

* See Andrews' " Brief Institutes of General History," Boston, 
1887, p. 6f., for valuable suggestions and references. It is an excel- 
lent guide-book for the whole field of history. 



THE HISTORICAL SEMINARY. \'j 

the canons of the Synod, etc. Whatever helps you 
have, you must look at these original facts with 
your own eyes and come to an understanding of 
them for yourself, if you are to do original work. 

We may, perhaps, now see more clearly the ben- 
efit of original study in history already argued, in 
the more perfect mastery gained thereby over it for 
the practical application of its lessons to our pre- 
sent needs. The original student, who has taken 
the facts in hand and learned to see what is signifi- 
cant in them and what not, has traced the line of 
their causative operation and weighed their results, 
can detect historical parallelisms, can predict re- 
sults, and can make the Muse of History an orac- 
ular divinity. Any one can see that the excessive 
emphasis of the subjective element in the formation 
of religious opinion is likely to lead to departures 
from objective truth. But he who has himself com- 
pared the fanatical movements of this sort, like those 
of the Montanists or the Zwickau prophets, with the 
sober and evangelical forms, like that of the Luth- 
eran theology, or with cold and rationalistic forms 
like that of Semler and Paulus, will have acquired a 
certain delicacy of historical touch and power of dis- 
crimination which, is one of the highest products of 
historical training, and which will enable him with 
a degree of certainty to separate between dangerous 
and innocuous movements in our own day. 

It is for the performance of this work and the se- 
curing of these results that the historical seminary 
has been devised. Originally the contrivance of 



X 3 THE SEMINARY METHOD. 

Von Ranke for training a school of professional his- 
torians, it is now generally recognized as the best 
device for accomplishing the results already sug- 
gested and of perfecting the training of any student 
who may make history a significant portion of his 
education. An historical seminary is a labora- 
tory for history. It is a workshop where the stu- 
dent is taught to make history. It is a place where 
the beginner may acquire methods, and where the 
advanced student may do work which shall contrib- 
ute to the sum of human knowledge. 

A seminary should be furnished with suitable 
apartments, though these are not indispensable. 
Tools for the work, the co-operative labor of pupils 
and teacher, and results gained make the seminary. 
But as a family needs a house, so a seminary needs 
rooms for its exclusive use. Their extent will de- 
pend on the number of students. They should be 
accessible day or evening, and each student should 
have a latch-key of his own. There should be 
abundant table room. Each student should have a 
draw with lock and key, where he may keep his 
papers and writing materials. The more advanced 
students should have small individual tables on 
which they may keep the books they are using as 
long as they need them. Heat and light should be 
provided. And if there be a dressing-room, where 
the dusty student, just returned from a long walk, 
can wash and refresh himself, and so with the least 
possible delay can sit down undisturbed and pursue 
his labor till his time for study is exhausted, there 



THE HISTORICAL SEMINARY. 



19 



will be little in the way of external accommodations 
to desire.* 

The principal furniture of the seminary will be 
its library. The standard books which must be 
consulted constantly should be owned by the sem- 
inary, and never taken from its rooms. A seminary 
for church history should have at least the following 
classes of books : dictionaries of Greek, classic and 
Byzantine ; Latin, classic and mediaeval ; German 
and French, ancient and modern ; English : atlases 
like Spruner'sand Johnson's: chronological tables, 
like Smith's : encyclopaedias, the Britannica ; the 
American; Herzog (German); Schaff- Herzog; 
Herbst, for modern secular history ; Meyer's Con- 
versationslexicon : standard histories, like Schaff, 
Neander, Gieseler, Milman, Gibbon, Green, Ban- 
croft, Kurtz, Stevens (Methodism), Punchard (Con- 
gregationalism), Gillett (Presbyterianism) : bibliog- 
raphies like Hagenbach's Encyclopaedia : guide- 
books like Hagenbach, for the history of doctrine ; 
or Fisher for universal history. The sources for 
the study may properly be the property of the 
university library, and be deposited temporarily 
in the seminary for current use, although certain 
classes of sources will be in so constant demand 
that a vigorous seminary will soon find it convenient 

* The best arranged seminary in this country is doubtless that at 
Johns Hopkins University. Here in a series of rooms opening into 
each other, are lecture rooms, professors' offices, a newspaper room, 
a map bureau, a room for statistics, a lavatory, and then the general 
seminary room, in which are tables, libraries, and every other con- 
trivance which can help the student in his work. These fine apart- 
ments are superior to those of the seminary at Leipsic. 



20 THE SEMINARY METHOD. 

to own them, as for example, sets of the Ante- 
Nicene Fathers, Luther, Calvin, etc. 

The seminary arranged, and the library in place, 
the instruction may begin. Methods may vary 
almost indefinitely, if only certain features be se- 
cured. The work must be original and co-opera- 
tive. This is the essential thing. All else is only 
the means of attaining this. Some large general 
topic should be selected for the work of the whole 
seminary, and subordinate topics assigned to the 
individual students. Weekly meetings may be 
held, when the results of the separate investigations 
shall be reported, and each investigator subjected to 
the cross-fire of criticism or supplementary sugges- 
tion from the director and the body of students. 
Dr. A. B. Hart conducts his seminary for American 
histoiy in Harvard College after the following plan. 
The course opens with introductory lectures on the 
methods of study, sources of history, bibliography, 
etc., and then the students take up their individual 
topics. There are two distinct lines of work, — the 
preparation of a large subject, which shall teach the 
student to get speedily a grasp of many details in a 
limited time, and the preparation of a carefully 
wrought thesis on a smaller topic where the object 
shall be the most perfect work, based on a knowl- 
edge of the whole literature." The teacher meets 
his students in his own room, twice a week. The 
writer conducted his first seminary on the general 
topic of New England theology. He lectured him- 

* For list of topics, see appendix. 



THE HISTORICAL SEMINARY. 2 \ 

self twice a week, beginning at the beginning of the 
school and following it down as far as the time per- 
mitted. Each student received his topic for inves- 
tigation, so chosen as to afford the opportunity of 
tracing a real historical development, and having 
points of contact with every other topic. One 
received, for example, The Nature of the Will ; 
another, The Doctrine of Conversion ; another, The 
Nature of Virtue, etc. There are almost innumer- 
able points of contact in these three topics. Three 
meetings a week were held for conference, reports, 
suggestions and criticisms. The work of each stu- 
dent was completed when he handed in a perfect 
thesis upon his topic. At the present writing, the 
seminary w r ork is conducted in connection with a 
course of lectures, delivered five times weekly, on 
the history of doctrine. Only a part of the hearers 
of the lectures are in the seminary. The topics 
have been selected from one author of critical 
importance for the whole progress of doctrine in 
the church — Augustine.* One meeting has been 
held each week for written reports and criticisms. 
Von Noorden, in the Historical Seminary at Leipsic, 
conducted classes with only one weekly meeting and 
no lectures. Methods may thus vary widely ; but 
in the case of an earnest and able young man, the 
mere opportunity of doing this study will be the 
occasion of the greatest profit, and none but the 
earnest and able will make anything out of it under 
any plan, — or much out of anything else. 

* For a list of the topics, see appendix. 



III. 



THE NECESSARY PREPARATION FOR SEMINARY 
STUDY. 

THE classes for seminary work must evidently be 
carefully chosen. Were the teaching force of any 
institution large enough, and the time allotted to 
university studies long enough, the method might 
profitably be extended to all students, as every 
student of chemistry is expected to spend some 
little time at least in the laboratory. But original 
study calls for an original mind. There must be an 
intellectual appetite amounting to a passion for in- 
dependent knowledge, if a man is to do the best 
original work, and no good work of this kind can be 
done without masculine and vigorous mental quali- 
ties. There must be also a certain intellectual 
preparation. The tools necessary to the work must 
be in hand, and at least some facility in their use 
must have been already acquired. 

What these preliminary attainments must be in 
any case, will depend on the character of the work 
to be done. If one turns his attention to mediaeval 
history to find that "key to the historical answer to 
the questions of our time between the church and 
the world " which Mr. Hatch says it will furnish us, 
he will evidently enter upon a study of institutions 
where his sources will be largely in Latin, and his 



PREPARA TION FOR SEMINAR Y STUD Y 23 

topics call for an extensive knowledge of Roman 
and ecclesiastical law. Questions in American sec- 
ular history will not demand so great linguistic prep- 
aration, but their successful solution will require 
those qualities of mind and general acquisitions 
which can only be developed by severe mental 
gymnastic, and which are usually found in our 
country only in men classically educated. In 
church history, since all questions are intimately 
connected with those principles of Christian doctrine 
which have called out and exhausted the profound- 
est thought of the profoundest minds, little worth 
doing will be accomplished by any one who has not 
had at least so much metaphysical training as is 
given in the somewhat meagre philosophical course 
of our colleges. While but a glance at the ponder- 
ous quartos and folios of Greek and Latin, and but 
a brief search for suitable guide-books outside of the 
German language, will be needed to convince the 
would-be-student of Christian doctrine that he must 
be well up in his classics and his German. If the 
seminary is to be a brilliant success over any large 
field, it must therefore restrict its privileges to clas- 
sically educated men. 

Among the students of our colleges and theologi- 
cal seminaries of fifteen years since the proposition 
to enter upon original study of history would, no 
doubt, have been hailed with delight. But it would 
have immediately called forth the despairing cry 
that such work among Greek and Latin sources 
would be impossible, so poorly had our classical 
training prepared us to- make a practical use of the 



2 4 THE SEMINA R Y ME THOD. 

languages over which so much time had been spent. 
Indeed, it had never been the purpose of our teach- 
ers that we should be able to turn our knowledge 
to a practical use. They had for the time being 
forgotten that discipline need not be neglected while 
practical facility is also attained. But a better day 
has dawned, and now boys in the preparatory school 
write letters to their mothers in Latin after four 
weeks' study of the language! " Reading at sight," 
and " translation both ways" have worked wonders, 
and will work greater yet. The graduate of 1888 will 
not tremble as the graduate of 1868 must have done 
at Chrysostom or Bernard. 

Yet if the graduate of a college where the best 
modern methods are not employed, feels himself 
drawn to the study, he need not despair. If the 
elementary forms have been learned, and the work 
of becoming familiar with the grammatical princi- 
ples has been well done, he may now go forward to 
familiarize himself with the language he proposes to 
use, and this with many advantages which he could 
not well have had before. After a certain point of 
attainment has been reached, the best way to con- 
tinue the study of a language is not to study it for 
itself, but to study some interesting topic by its 
help. Then the topic allures the reader on, carries 
him over innumerable dry places, freshens his inter- 
est when it is about to flag, gives to philological 
problems a living charm of its own, and, by means 
of association with the important matter it has 
added to the mental possessions of the student, and 
which he will not readily let slip, stamps vocabulary, 



PREPARA TION FOR SEMINAR Y STUD Y 



25 



syntax, the construction of sentences, and all the 
rest ineffaceably upon his memory. Students of 
the modern languages often find that they have ob- 
tained their first hold on a language when they have 
finished some story which had interested them, and 
for the time being made them forget they were not 
reading their own mother tongue. The historical 
student may avail himself of the same method with 
the same results. His topics, if he lays hold of 
them as a true student should, will have more than 
the transient and unreal interest of fiction, and will 
do for him as much as that. He will not make so 
rapid progress as he would if better prepared, for 
he has now not only to use his tools, but also largely 
to learn their use. But he will make progress 
enough ; and every piece of work well done will 
give him new power for the next. 

The ideal which he should set before him from 
the beginning is the attainment of the power to 
read the language. " Reading " is not the same as 
translating. A man who translates Greek into Eng- 
lish, performs a more complicated process than he 
who reads Greek, and thus gathers the idea of the 
author from his very words without the intervention 
of the medium of English. The idea in its course 
from Plato's mind through Greek and then through 
English to the mind of the modern reader, has made 
quite a circuit, and the progress demands percepti- 
bly more time than it would if the English link 
could be omitted from the chain. Time is knowl- 
edge to the student as it is money to the merchant. 
If he proposes to do any considerable work, he can- 



2 6 THE SEMINARY METHOD. 

not afford to lose any time he can save. Hence he 
must learn to read his languages. 

But can a person learn to read Greek and Latin 
after this fashion ? Yes, he can. Such Latin and 
Greek as are required for the study of all mediaeval 
history, where of course the subject matter is more 
akin to modern writing than is the case in the clas- 
sics, can readily be learned, if the student only 
attacks the problem in the right manner. Reading 
a language, for a man who can fluently and easily 
translate, is a matter of mere habit, or of skill. 
There is a certain knack which can be acquired, and 
which is the same in all languages. Take for exam- 
ple, the following sentence selected at random from 
Kahnis' Dogmatik : i: Besonders erfolgreicJi aber war 
fiir Gottschalk 's Sache die Gunst des Erzbischofs von 
Lyon, Re/m'gizts." If a person only knows the mean- 
ing of the words, so that as German words they 
immediately suggest a thought to his mind, the 
sentence is intelligible at once, for the peculiar diffi- 
culty of this kind of reading is not presented by this 
particular sentence at all. It reads : " Especially 
effective however was for Gottschalk's affair the 
favor of the Archbishop of Lyons, Remigius." 
That is not exactly the English order, but it is 
perfectly intelligible without the slightest change. 
When, now, we have an inverted and involved Ger- 
man sentence, skill and habit will reduce it to the 
same level and treat it in the same way. It must 
be understood step for step as it comes. Take the 
following, which is a pretty bad case taken from 
Schiller's Thirty Years' War: "Alter Gegenbemii- 



PREPARATION FOR SEMINARY STUDY. 



27 



hungen Papst Urbans des A chten ungeachtet, der den 
Krieg angstlich von diesen Gegenden zn entfernen 
suchte, schickte er eine deutsche A rmee iiber die A Ipen, 
deren aneriuartete Erscheinung alle italienischen 
Staaten in Schrecken setzteT The knack of reading 
that sentence, and such as it, consists in holding the 
mind poised over each word, like the eagle in mid- 
air over its prey, till the progress of the sentence 
gives the clew to its construction. If the sentence 
is to be translated, the eye must run back and forth 
over it several times till subject and leading verb 
are found, and then the translator must make a 
plunge into the middle of it, and begin with 
ungeachtet. Not so the reader. He takes the first 
word alter. He does not know where it is found, 
and cannot tell. It may be masculine nominative, 
feminine dative, plural genitive. He seizes simply 
what he can get, the meaning all, and waits for the 
more exact definition which the context is to reveal. 
The next word decides the case. It can be only 
genitive plural. With these two words which are 
to depend on something still to come, held in firm 
grasp, the eye goes on till ungeachtet is reached, and 
then, as the eagle swoops down upon its prey, the 
whole adverbial clause is seized upon by the mind, 
and again held ready to be fitted into the rest of the 
sentence when it shall have been unfolded. We 
thus hold the mind suspended over long parentheses 
in English, why can we not do it in German ? In 
what is this sentence different from the English one 
beginning: "All the assurances of my honored 
colleague to the contrary, in deference to the truth, 



2 g THE SEMINA R Y ME THOD. 

I must declare, etc." In the same way that great 
difficulty, so formidable to the learner, of putting 
off hearing the verb of a transposed clause till it is 
given at the end, as in the case of suclite and setzte 
in the sentence quoted, is finally surmounted. 
Hold the mind poised till the word comes for decis- 
ion. Let the sentence be like the chemical solution 
into which many reagents are introduced without 
apparent effect, till the last decisive one is added, 
when the precipitate falls. To be sure, a certain 
nimbleness of mind will be required to see instanta- 
neously the difference between the dative : " Der 
Verfolgung entwich er, etc/' and the nominative: 
Der Ur sprung der Schwierigkcit war dass, etc. ; " 
but the mind will respond to the demand when it is 
decidedly made. 

The instances selected are from the German lan- 
guage because the doubting and hesitating student 
will find at any university a dozen men who actually 
do thus read German every day. The art is possi- 
ble because it is actual. But if possible and actual 
in the case of German, it is possible also in the case 
of Latin and Greek. The difficulties in these lan- 
guages are only a little greater, not of a different 
sort, and not enough greater to become at all insur- 
mountable. The number of those who thus use 
Latin and Greek is smaller than of those who have 
German perfectly in their control. Our methods of 
education have been decidedly at fault at this point. 
But there are many scholars in this country, and 
many more in Europe, who would never think of 
translating Latin or Greek sources for the sake of 



PREPARA TION FOR SEMINARY STUDY. 



2 9 



getting at their meaning. What difficulty does this 
sentence offer to a man who tries to read it rather 
than translate : ." Script ores ve teres omnes praeter 
iinum Augustinum ponunt aliquam electionis causam 
in nobis esse " ? Or what difficulty in the following 
is there which is not surpassed in the second Ger- 
man sentence quoted above : " Obedientiam mortis 
voco y quam praestitit speciali mandato patris de 
patiendo et morie7tdo pro electis " ? 

But how shall this art be acquired? By reading, 
reading, reading. The first difficulty to be over- 
come is our habit of transposing the foreign words 
to fit the English order. We suppose this to be 
more logical ; but it is not so. There is no logical 
order of words in a sentence. Is the German order 
illogical because it is different from ours? That 
would be to set up a very ridiculous standard, 
which might be reversed by some German in a way 
not altogether flattering to our pride. If the writer 
may illustrate from his own experience, this diffi- 
culty is to be overcome by itself, and can best be 
made to yield when attacked alone. In learning to 
read German, he got finally to the point where the 
form of the German sentence seemed to be the great 
bar to further progress. He took that little story 
of Eichendorff's — Aus dem Leben ernes Tatigenichts, 
and began to read it without translating. He con- 
tented himself with any understanding of the sen- 
tences which was clear enough to let him see his 
way through them. If he knew what a sentence 
would mean, provided only this or that word were 
clear he forged ahead. Thus many words were left 



OQ THE SEMINAR Y ME THOD. 

behind, the precise meaning of which was very- 
uncertain, but little by little the German sentence 
became natural and easy ; and when the book was 
done, superficial as the work may seem to any one 
who thinks that thoroughness demands that Ave 
should do everything at once, the difficulty which 
the experimenter had determined to remove, was 
gone forever. 

Since, now, the seminary student is both learning 
a language and collecting materials for an historical 
essay, he cannot thus slip over details in his study. 
If he finds he cannot make good headway with 
these two problems at the same time, let him read 
the important passages of his author twice, once for 
the language drill and for orientation, and once 
again for the matter. Let him begin, if he must, by 
translating a sentence; but let him not leave it 
until he can read it, and understand it without trans- 
lation. Then let him drop the translating habit 
more and more, and introduce the reading habit in 
its place. Finally he will be able to read altogether, 
and then his outfit for the work in this direction 
will be complete. 

When this new power has once been employed 
with considerable satisfaction, a later trial may find 
the student not yet its entire master. But he will 
regain it, with comparative ease, and, the process 
repeated as often as necessary, he will finally be in 
perfect possession of the language. 

It is in a similar way that the student has to con- 
quer the other deficiencies of his previous training. 
If he will enter the theological historical seminary, 



PREPARA TION FOR SEMINAR Y STUD Y. 3 x 

he will find that it presupposes the philosophical 
seminary, for in church doctrine the philosophical 
element is often so strong as to demand special 
training in this department. But if the student has 
not enjoyed the advantage of suitable preliminary 
discipline, now is his time to make good his defi- 
ciencies and prepare his tools while he is using 
them. Let him manfully grapple with his difficul- 
ties one by one, as they present themselves, and 
they will gradually disappear, and he will be able, 
however hopeless the effort may at first seem, to 
accomplish finally a good result. 



IV. 

THE METHOD OF ORIGINAL STUDY. 

The student has received his topic from the di- 
rector of the seminary, and has seated himself at 
his table to begin his work. His first task is what 
may be called, by a not illegitimate extension of 
the literal to a figurative use of the word, orienta- 
tion. That is, the student must get his bearings, 
and see where his topic lies in the field of history, 
where those explaining causes, and where those 
effected results, for which true history is always 
searching, are to be found. 

Let the topic be " Socinianism," for example. 
Where shall he look for his orientation? To the 
guide-books, and first to Kurtz. There he will find 
his topic, the name, dates, outline biography, theo- 
logical connections, and leading doctrinal ideas of 
Faustus Socinus ; and this is the orientation. 

This suggests that the first thing for the student 
to do in the way of getting acquainted with the 
facilities of the seminary is to look over the guide- 
books, and see what they will do for him. The 
term chosen to designate this variety of helps, 
is, perhaps, more significant than classical, but we 
shall retain it in default of a better. A good guide- 
book is the most precious of all the tools of the 

3^ 



THE METHOD OF ORIGINAL STUDY. 33 

original investigator. Take, for example, Kurtz. 
Here, in two moderate volumes, is presented the 
whole field of church history in outline. Each 
half volume begins with a fine table of contents, 
which alone is often enough to locate a prominent 
event, and the whole closes with a minute index. 
Before every principal division is a long list of 
books, sources or treatises, sometimes covering 
pages, and into almost every paragraph is incorpo- 
rated a mention of the chief books on the subject of 
that paragraph. In the case of Socinianism, six 
different works are referred to. Thus the student 
is guided to all the principal literature of the sub- 
ject, given the clews, and set to work. 

Almost every department, now, of church his- 
tory has its guide-book, although most of them are 
in German. The real student must get his German 
at his finger-ends, as indeed he must the three other 
learned languages, Greek, Latin, and French. For 
the whole field of church history, Herzog's " Real- 
encyclopaedie " is the most comprehensive and trust- 
worthy guide-book. For its field, Hagenbach's 
"History of Doctrine" is excellent. American 
church history has no such guide-book as these, but 
Smith's " Chronological Tables " contain a marvellous 
amount of information of the sort desired. Many 
monographs, as Punchard's, or Dexter's " Congrega- 
tionalism," help us out here. Indeed, special mono- 
graphs, even where their contents are of little or no 
value, if they are written with that careful citation 
of authorities which may sometimes seem like 
pedantry, but which is rather a scholar's duty to 
3 



34 



THE SEMINARY METHOD. 



his successors, are often the best guide-books. 
What the author was aiming at, may be aside from 
your topic, but you may need to examine precisely 
the same sources as he. 

The orientation obtained, and the bibliography 
of the subject made out as fully as may be from the 
guide-books, our student is ready for the study 
from the sources, of which he has also learned from 
the guide-book and the seminary or university 
library catalogue. How shall he open them up ? 
Take for example, " Calvin's Psychology." Of course 
the sources are Calvin's works, and presumably his 
Institutes in chief. But how shall the student find 
psychological discussions in that bulky work ? Let 
him ask : What psychology do I desire principally 
to examine ? The answer will be : That of the 
will ; and now the table of contents will show that 
this topic is discussed in Book II., Chapter II., and 
in § 2 he will find the subject begun by a discus- 
sion of the divisions of the mind. The chief diffi- 
culty will now have been solved, for when the student 
has once gotten a hold on an author's discussion, in- 
numerable suggestions, and often express references 
will lead him from topic to topic, and from book to 
book, till the whole is examined and the results are 
reached. 

Sometimes the best way to open the sources is to 
turn first to some monograph or encyclopaedia, and 
read the discussion of the theme. If the student 
is very inexperienced in such study, or totally un- 
acquainted with the philosophical side of the sub- 
ject, this may be best. Otherwise he will run the 



THE METHOD OF ORIGINAL STUDY. or 

risk of having to re-read all his sources, since, in his 
general ignorance, he will fail to see the points of 
significance. A man who wishes to classify plants, 
must first gain sufficient knowledge of botany to 
know what the distinctive features about plants in 
general are, or else his eye will glide unobserving 
over many noteworthy facts in the specimens in 
hand. But in no case should such preliminary 
reading be anything more than orientation. Never 
use another mans' results till you know for yourself. 
When the study of the sources has fairly begun, 
the young student will often find himself trans- 
ported to a world altogether strange to him, and 
will be in much doubt whether he understands his 
authors. If the topic pertains to political history, 
or to the external history of the church, the diffi- 
culty will be to bring facts into their relations, and 
understand them, each in the light of the others. 
Here few useful general directions can be given. 
The student must learn this kind of study as swim- 
ming is learned, by doing it. He sees, for example, 
that the forged Isidorian decretals ascribe an im- 
mense importance to the Primate ; he sees, again, 
the ambition of the Archbishop of Mayence ; and, 
putting these facts together, he begins to suspect 
that the Archbishop may have had a hand in the 
forgery, and looks about for additional evidence. 
In the history of philosophy or Christian doctrine, 
the difficulty will be a greater and a deeper one. 
How shall I seize the idea of this utterly incompre- 
hensible sentence, and put it into the language of 
to-day? What weight shall I attach to this argu- 



36 



THE SEMINARY METHOD. 



ment, in its present form so inconclusive, or even ab- 
surd ? How put myself so completely into the situa- 
tion of the writer that I think his thoughts after him, 
and find his language natural ? What force is there 
in Lotze's remark: u if the greatest were not, then 
the greatest were not, and it is certainly unthinka- 
ble that the greatest of all conceivable things should 
not &e" f What, again, does Luther mean, when 
he says of the will : " Agi non est agere, sed rapi, 
quemadmodum serra aut securis agitur " ? Does 
he mean to make us mere machines in the hand of 
God ? Or when Melancthon talks of the co-opera- 
tion of the human will, what is he aiming at ? When 
he speaks of God's " determining contingent events," 
what sense lies concealed in that paradox ? Such 
questions will constantly arise, perhaps in great 
number over the first page of the student's reading. 
The answer now must be much as it was before, 
" Put yourself in the situation of the writer " by 
putting yourself tJiere ! What were the ideas of 
the writer lying beneath the subject now in hand 
and determining its form ? In the example just 
cited, what is the psychology of Luther or Melanc- 
thon ? Did they recognize any distinction between 
the sensibility and the will ? What was their con- 
ception of the general relation of God to the uni- 
verse ? These are preliminary questions, and sug- 
gest that the student has not begun far enough 
back in his topic. Thus with the earnest attempt 
to understand, the topic begins to ramify. 

We may often adopt the plan of comparing many 
parallel or related passages. Each illuminates the 



THE METHOD OF ORIGINAL STUDY. 37 

other. A totally obscure idea may become clear 
from a single remark made by some contemporary 
or predecessor of the writer. Customs, or the con- 
stitution of the state may throw light on the diffi- 
culty. Why did the Arminians of Holland make 
so great and apparently so unseemly an ado about 
the nature of the courts before which their case 
should be examined ? The political constitution 
of Holland affords the key to it. To whom did the 
author write confidentially ? is a question that will 
often lead to sources of information as to his ruling 
ideas. In general, a man's date, place of birth, 
parentage, education, reading, residence, friends, 
employment, other writings, religious denomina- 
tion, age and experience, etc., etc., constitute his 
interpreting environment. 

With all this reading and thinking, note-taking 
must go hand in hand. Note, at least by reference 
and a catch-word sufficiently definite to suggest the 
whole idea, every important thing you find. Make 
full quotations which you will want to use, and do 
not be too sparing about them ! You will not be 
compelled to use them, because you have copied 
them ! Preferably use loose small sheets of paper, 
a quarter of a fool's-cap page, and write on only one 
side. These can be sorted readily under the sub- 
divisions of your theme as you get it more and 
more in hand. Note every query that occurs to 
you, and follow them all up. They will often throw 
a flood of light on some unexplored point. You 
cannot turn aside for them now, but by-and-by you 
can. " Had Calvin read Zwingli and adopted his 



38 



THE SEMINARY METHOD, 



theory of the exclusive divine causality, when he 
wrote the Institutes?" That question put down, 
kept unanswered, and perhaps unanswerable, will, 
if turned over and over times enough, fix itself in 
the mind, and cause the eye, by a certain magnetic 
attraction, to draw to itself, some day, Calvin's 
statement that he long left Zwingli unread because 
of disgust excited towards him by the misrepresent- 
ations of the Lutherans. There is a whole chapter 
of information as to Calvin's system in that single 
fact. It was not dominated by an overpowering 
philosophical idea, even if Calvin's predecessor did 
have that idea ! 

The ramification of topics under the labors of the 
student has already been brought before us. Let 
the topic be : The Atonement in the Westminster 
Confession. This is founded on Calvin. What, 
then, was Calvin's view? To understand this: 
What is his view of justice ? of imputation in gen- 
eral? hence, of original sin? etc., etc. Was Calvin 
opposed ? Yes, by Socinus. What was Socinus' 
fundamental objection to Calvin ? Did he under- 
stand him? Which was right? What was Socinus' 
own theory? Why did he not lay more weight on 
the death of Christ ? Any light here from his doc- 
trine of sin ? of the nature of Christ ? Who replied 
to Socinus? Had Grotius' Arminianism anything 
to do with his theory? Central point of that 
theory? Idea of justice? of virtue? — Such ramifi- 
cations the student must accustom himself to see. 
If he bears the ideas about history as the explana- 
tion of events, with which we set out in this discus- 



THE METHOD OF ORIGINAL STUDY. 39 

sion, in mind, and is never satisfied with a fact until 
he has also found its explanation, the subject will 
open itself. As you gaze carelessly at a tree, you 
see, it may be, but a mass of darkness against the 
sky. But look ! and you will see the trunk dividing 
into branches, branches into boughs, boughs into 
twigs, and twigs sprouting with twiglets, almost 
ad infinitum. Be thorough in the study of your 
theme, and be assured that you have not been thor- 
ough, unless it has laid itself open in all these vari- 
ous connections. 

Dean Stanley, in his " History of the Eastern 
Church," * has given a good illustration of the rami- 
fication of a subject from another point of view. 
He says : " Take, for example, the general councils 
of the church. They are the pitched battles of 
ecclesiastical history. Ask yourselves the same 
questions as you would about the battles of military 
history. Ask when, and where, and why they were 
fought. Put before your minds all the influences of 
the age, which there were confronted and concen- 
trated from different quarters as in one common 
focus. See why they were summoned to Nicaea, to 
Constance, to Trent : the locality often contains 
here, as in actual battles, the key of their position, 
and easily connects the ecclesiastical history of the 
age with its general history and geography. Look 
at the long procession as it enters the scene of 
assembly ; see who was present and who was absent. 
Let us make ourselves acquainted with the several 
characters there brought together, so that we may 

* Edition of 1884, p. (43.) 



4 o THE SEMINA R Y ME THOD. 

recognize them as old friends if we meet them again 
elsewhere. Study their decrees, as expositions of 
the prevailing sentiments of the time ; study them 
as Mr. Froude has advised us to study the statutes of 
our own ancient parliaments ; see what evils are most 
condemned, and what evils are left uncondemned ; 
observe how far their injunctions are still obeyed, 
or how far set at naught, and ask in each case the 
reason why. Read them, as I have just now 
noticed, with the knowledge which each gives of 
every other. Do this for any one council, and you 
will have made a deep hole into ecclesiastical his- 
tory." 

But study cannot go on forever if a theme is at 
last to be considered done, or the work to have a 
conclusion which may be employed for any good 
end. Where can the thorough student stop ? 
Where he finds results of other competent workers 
after the same independent method he is pursuing. 
When you cannot follow your authority into the 
details of his work, you can yet gain a close enough 
view of his methods, test his general ability accu- 
rately enough, and examine his alleged proofs crit- 
ically enough to have a reasonable ground for an 
opinion about him. If you see that he has written 
history to gain support for some preconceived opin- 
ion of his own, reject him at once. If he has first 
laid down certain general laws according to which 
history must develop, give him the go-by. Nothing 
can more discolor the simple facts of history than 
philosophic or dogmatic goggles. Apart from the 
general principles of metaphysics and logic, the facts 



THE METHOD OF ORIGINAL STUDY. ^ 

of human nature discernible by the exercise of com- 
mon sense, and some special laws of development 
suggested by the topic itself, no historical laws can 
be prescribed beforehand. If a writer is evidently 
honest in his statement of facts, honest also in his 
effort to get at their meaning in a legitimate way, 
and in easy control of himself and his subject, he 
may be relied upon. If anything more needs to be 
known of the matter than is conveyed in remarks 
like these, it must be gained by experience. A few 
failures with authorities will make the student 
exceedingly critical. The judgment of the teacher 
may be profitably employed at this point, till the 
student has acquired a certain degree of historical 
instinct. The student of church history should, 
perhaps, be warned that nothing is more likely to 
disturb the historical judgment than theological 
prejudice. And yet the vitiated may not be wholly 
worthless, and where the disturbing influences do 
not operate, the compass may yet point straight to 
the truth. 

Another question suggests itself as to these ram- 
ifying inquiries. What are worth following out ? 
And what will give only my labor for my pains ? 

In reply, let it be noted, first, that negative results 
are often as valuable as positive results. You exam- 
ine a topic for a day or two, and you come finally to 
the definite result that there is nothing in it. You 
have not necessarily lost your time. One must learn 
patience. There are risks to be run, as well as dis- 
coveries to be made. German students in settling 
upon themes for their graduating theses, seek for 



42 



THE SEMINARY METHOD. 



points which nobody has ever investigated. They 
may gain little : they may immortalize themselves. 
If they ever gain distinction, they know, at least, it 
will not be by doing over what some one else has 
already done. But negative results have often pos- 
itive value. Arminianism is often said to be derived 
from Zwinglianism. To show that this is not the 
case, may be to guard yourself from some hasty 
generalization, and will certainly advance the under- 
standing of the history by exploding the false claims 
of certain men. 

But the student desires — and this is the real 
meaning of his question — to avoid irrelevant inves- 
tigations, which yield him no result whatever, nega- 
tive or positive. The check here is of easier appli- 
cation. The irrelevant will generally be the logic- 
ally irrelevant. If I am investigating the effects 
upon the church of union with the state, the growth 
of the German church after the crowning of Charle- 
magne may have something to do with it, but not 
the style of Boniface's preaching to the Thuringian 
heathen. Calvin's theory of original sin is relevant 
to his theory of imputation, because there ought at 
least, to be an analogy between the imputation of 
Adam's sin and that of Christ's righteousness. If 
the former is figuratively understood, or left unmen- 
tioned, the latter must probably be figurative also. 
If the one is literal, so will the other probably be. 
The clew to the understanding of Calvin's meaning 
which may elude me as I study the one topic, would 
possibly discover itseif if I turned to the other. 
The remoter logically a minor point is from the 



THE METHOD OF ORIGINAL STUDY. 



43 



main question, the less likely it is to yield practical 
results. 

After the lines of inquiry have been decided upon, 
and the work actually begun, it may often be neces- 
sary to practise the art of "judicious skipping." 
Authors will repeat, or wander from the theme, or 
fall into prosy and unprofitable development of a 
thought plain enough, and so compel the scrupulous 
reader to thresh much straw for little grain. The 
only remedy is to skip. Life is too short to submit 
to be bored by a divine of the sixteenth century ! 
It is bad enough to be bored by one of the nine- 
teenth ! When to skip, how to leave out all the 
chaff, and resume the reading at just the point 
where the wheat lies, the student must learn for 
himself. It is dangerous business. You may omit 
something valuable. Sometimes the risk is too 
great, and you must plod on, though sighing as you 
go ! A certain tact, however, can be obtained which 
will do much to diminish the risk and save needless 
labor. It is better to go back now and then and 
re-read a passage when you find afterward that 
some link has escaped you, than to perish of weari- 
ness and disgust. 

And yet, let me pause here to guard against a 
possible misunderstanding. Proper attention to 
minor points, and the just appreciation of minute 
variations of thought, may often make all the differ- 
ence between a finished and useful piece of work, 
and one so general as to be vague and useless. The 
"just mean" between the loose and the fmically 
exact treatment of a subject, who shall define? Let 



44 THE SEMINARY METHOD. 

the student's ideals of finished excellence be high, 
and his grip of logical connection and rhetorical 
proportion be strong, and he will, with experience, 
attain success at this point also. Familiarity with 
the best models of historical writing will afford the 
most valuable suggestions here, if, indeed, the lively- 
criticism of fellow-students in the general meetings 
of the seminary does not give more pointed ones ! 

As he proceeds in his study, the student will often 
come upon statements of fact which he suspects of 
being untrustworthy. How shall he decide the 
point ? He must treat the writer as a witness, and 
submit his evidence to those tests which are applied 
in courts of law. An interesting summary of these, 
sufficient for the purposes of the ordinary investiga- 
tions of an historical seminary, may be found in 
Whately's Rhetoric, I. ii. § 4, which the young stu- 
dent will do well to consult. In matters of plain 
fact, — i. e., things about which there could be no 
difference of opinion between persons brought into 
contact with the facts, — we may get aid by noting 
such points as the personal interest of the witness 
in the statement he gives, his acquaintance with the 
subject, length of observation, etc. The cases of 
the greatest difficulty arise from those numerous 
instances of a mixed character, in which matters of 
fact and opinion are inextricably involved in one 
another. For example, what was the real character 
of the conspiracy of Catiline ? How far can we 
trust the verdict of Cicero upon him? Cicero's 
opportunities of informing himself were of the best. 
Had he any personal interest which renders his 



THE METHOD OF ORIGINAL STUDY. 



45 



opinion doubtful? Evidently he was disposed to 
glorify himself for his services to the State, and he 
may have been hurried by oratorical fervor into 
greater lengths of condemnation than was proper. 
These and such considerations must be weighed ere 
the answer to the question is given. 

The student of opinions, whether in the history 
of political institutions, of philosophy, or of Chris- 
tian doctrine, has often the puzzling question to 
meet as to how much reliance we can put upon the 
representations of the opinions of various thinkers 
who have lived at various times, but whose writings 
have been preserved to us only in the form of frag- 
ments inserted in the writings of their opponents. 
The heat which is to be noted in almost all theologi- 
cal controversy, is always suggestive of prejudice, 
unfairness, and unconscious or conscious misrepre- 
sentation. What do we, after all, know of Pelagius, 
of whose own writings so little is left to us ? or of 
Arius ? We must look at the character of the 
remains. In some cases, as that of Arius, though 
the church writers speak of him always with deep 
abhorrence, so as to excite at first the strongest sus- 
picions, we find that in several of them quotations 
of considerable length are given, and that they 
accord with one another, and with the forms of ex- 
pression found in Arius' own letters. In the num- 
ber of witnesses we find protection. The quota- 
tions from Pelagius are so long, there are so many 
reports of actual conferences with different Pela- 
gians in Augustine, that all suspicion of unfairness, 



46 THE SEMINAR Y ME THOD. 

and all complaint of insufficient information are 
excluded. 

If we could bring historical witnesses before us 
and subject them to a cross-examination, we could 
often discover the truth in cases that will always 
remain doubtful to us. But sometimes the records 
themselves put us in a position to apply this test. 
There is an interesting example in the case of the 
Pseudo-Isidorian decretals. Nicolas I. may be 
cited as a witness to the genuineness of these 
decretals, for in the year 864 he quotes them 
extensively as authority in his contest with 
Hincmar of Rheims. Certainly, the Bishop of 
Rome will not pronounce a document, which must 
naturally have been preserved in the Papal archives, 
if at all, to be genuine, unless he knows it to have 
been thus preserved. His testimony is that of one 
who ought to have the decisive fact under his im- 
mediate control. But circumstances enable us to 
put Nicolas, as it were, on the witness stand, and 
subject him to a cross-examination. We are told * 
that in the year 857 a certain Lupus of Ferrieres 
wrote to Nicolas among other things for a complete 
text of a (false) decretal of Pope Melchiades. 
Nicolas answered the letter, but wrote nothing 
about the said decretal, being thus apparently 
ignorant of its existence. In the year 863, he rests 
his case on the collection of Hadrian, without once 
mentioning the decretals of the popes before 
Siricius, though, had he known of them, he would 

* Herzog, Real-encyclopcedie, v. p; 33 xii. p. 380. ; 



THE METHOD OF ORIGINAL STUDY. 47 

most probably have used them, since they are much 
more in his favor. By this kind of cross-examina- 
tion, we see that he first knew of them between 
863 and 864, and hence his evidence as a witness to 
the genuineness of the documents, professedly so 
old, and which would have been so well known at 
the Papal court, if they had been known at all, is 
completely invalidated. 

A similar example may be taken from the history 
of doctrine. It is, I suppose, the standard Lutheran 
opinion that Zwingli, before the colloquy at Mar- 
burg (1529), was quite heretical on the main points 
of the Christian system of truth. Kahnis, a very 
learned and candid historian, says of his Christol- 
°gy : * " Zwingli's standpoint is simply the Anti- 
ochian-Nestorian." Kurtz describes a portion of the 
proceedings at Marburg thus : f " Zwingli gave up 
his divergent views as to these points (divinity of 
Christ, original sin, etc.), and declared himself in 
agreement with the ideas of the oecumenical 
church." The origin of this tradition as to Zwingli 
(for it is nothing more than a tradition) is in the 
utterances of Luther and Melancthon at the time, 
when they exclaimed : " Our adversaries have given 
away at almost every point ! " We are able to cross- 
examine these witnesses somewhat, and we at once 
find that they are rather suspicious. Luther had 
inveighed violently against the Swiss in his first 
controversial tract against them, and, in general, his 
notorious impetuosity of temper little fitted him 

* Lutherische Dogmatik, ii. 56. 
t Lehrbuch § 132, 4. 



48 THE SEMINARY METHOD. 

for the delicate task of judicial decision as to the 
actual opinions of an opponent. Melancthon was 
still entirely under the influence of Luther's com- 
manding personalty. Hence these witnesses, where 
independent, are not unprejudiced, and where un- 
prejudiced, are not independent. But we can go 
farther than this and demand the evidence on 
which they based their opinions. We do not know 
what flying rumors there may have been in circula- 
tion derogatory to the orthodoxy of Zwingli ; but 
Luther had access to Zwingli's writings, and they 
formed under the circumstances, the only piece of 
evidence which.he was justified in employing. Now, 
it is true that Zwingli in his "Commentary" does 
not mention the doctrine of the Trinity while treat- 
ing of the doctrine of God. But he never stigma- 
tizes it, like Melancthon in the first edition of the 
Loci, as scholastic and unprofitable. If he omits it, 
so does Melancthon, and with these added marks of 
disrespect. If he, therefore, was not a Trinitarian 
in 1529, Melancthon was an anti-trinitarian in 1521. 
If this remark is absurd when made of Melancthon, 
it is equally so when made of Zwingli. Thus the 
evidence was purely negative and absolutely worth- 
less. And thus, under cross-examination, again, 
testimony invalidates itself. 

We need, then, to be on our guard in examining 
our authorities, and yet we are not compelled to 
maintain a constant attitude of suspicion. The 
process of study during 300 years of Protestant 
science has unearthed most of the great frauds, and 
generally branded the unprincipled liars. Espe- 



THE METHOD OF ORIGINAL STUDY. 49 

dally is this true in the literature of the early church 
where the greatest possible degree of exact and 
comprehensive learning has been employed to 
separate the spurious from the genuine, and enable 
us to gain a true picture of the early life of Chris- 
tianity from contemporary witnesses. The guide- 
books will put us on our guard at the most impor- 
tant points, and the independent disposition which 
causes us to insist on seeing for ourselves, will serve 
as an almost complete protection. Clear up every 
dark subject, and falsehood will reveal itself, for it 
cannot endure the light. 

The most careful and thorough investigations 
which we are able to make, may, however, lead us 
into error. There remains the necessity, therefore, 
of gathering what light others have shed on the 
subject. We also, as scholars, owe it to the long suf- 
fering of a patient world not to drag them through 
needless discussion, perhaps better done elsewhere, 
that they may gain the few grains of new wheat we 
actually have to offer. In some cases, the literature 
to which the guide-books have introduced us, 
should be read before the investigation is begun, 
but generally after it is concluded. If our results 
are confirmed, directly or indirectly by some other 
investigator, our confidence in their soundness is 
enhanced. If there is disagreement, we are led to 
compare processes, and may thus eliminate errors. 
But in the last resort, our confidence that we are 
right must rest upon our conviction that the facts 
which we have collected, are genuine, and our 
canons and methods of procedure right. Collabo- 
4 



50 



THE SEMINARY METHOD. 



rators and authorities aside, we must finally know 
for ourselves. The original student must have the 
spirit of Athanasius contra Mnndiim ! 

And now, let us suppose the student to have 
arrived at the end of his labor, to have formulated 
his results, to have written a careful paper in which 
his theme is set forth in due sequence, with lucidity 
of statement and power of argument, supported by 
frequent citations of authorities and ample quota- 
tions from the sources, defended against criticism 
by the refutation of false views advanced by other 
investigators, and perfected by the completion of as 
extensive a bibliography as the resources of the 
library will enable him to prepare. All this done, 
the young student will often say in perplexity, 
What, now, shall I do with this ? To what profit is 
all this labor ? 

It is of no consequence if the question remains 
unanswered. A fact of history correctly presented 
has a value in itself. It is truth, and truth is a 
good, whether it is good for anything or not ! Men 
do not always know what they are effecting by 
some service they perform. The true significance 
of a fact will often remain hidden till it is brought, 
by some fortunate accident of investigation, into 
connection with some other fact, whose relation to 
it could not be known by him who first gave it a 
place in history. But, in general, the studies of an 
historical seminary will be more simple than this, 
and the results readily assigned to their place in the 
general structure of thought rising under the com- 
mon labors of the director and his pupils. The 
general topic ought to be selected with reference to 



THE METHOD OF ORIGINAL STUDY. 



51 



this point. It will then be seen that, just as the 
several subordinate studies of any theme fit into 
the whole of that theme, so the theme itself into 
the main subject. The prevalence of the theologi- 
cal element, and the strong influence of religious 
experiences, explain the form of Luther's doctrine 
of the bondage of the will. Melancthon is at first 
his echo, but the philosophical element begins to 
appear, and for a time sharpens the predestinarian- 
ism to a fatalism which Luther never taught. 
The progress of philosophical reflection in Melanc- 
thon together with the lack of any true psychology, 
produces that unsuccessful effort to rescue the free- 
dom of the will known as synergism. Melanc- 
thon's synergism rejected because it was against 
prevenient grace, Lutheranism attempted to pre- 
serve the freedom of the will, the demand for which 
Melancthon had voiced, although somewhat inco- 
herently, by rejecting election altogether. And 
thus, taking the system of orthodox Lutheranism 
as a fact in history calling for an explanation, this 
one feature of it gains its explanation through a 
chain of facts going back as far as to the struggles 
of the cell at Erfurt, any one of which may form 
the subject of a separate seminary topic. And so 
of the other features of the Lutheran system. To 
fit these various studies each into its place, and 
thus enable the student to see the results of his 
study in actual historical use, is, and must be, for 
the most part, while the students are yet somewhat 
inexperienced in original work, the task of the pre- 
siding mind of the seminary, the director. 



V. 

DETAILED EXAMPLES. 
I. The Significance of the Colloquy at Marburg. 

Having thus explained the method of original 
historical study in a general manner, it is now pro- 
posed to take a single topic and pursue it with suffi- 
cient minuteness and definiteness to enable the stu- 
dent to get a more concrete idea of the subject, and 
to furnish him with a model for his own work. If 
he choose to take the books in hand and follow out 
the explanation in all its details, he will doubtless 
do the most in this way to put himself in full pos- 
session of the method. 

He has received from the director of the semi- 
nary the topic : The Significance of the Marburg 
Colloquy. He knows general history enough to 
know that the Colloquy was held at the suggestion 
of Philip of Hesse, in 1529, and that it was an effort 
to bring the German and Swiss divines to such an 
agreement theologically as should enable the ad- 
herents of the two schools to combine for their mu- 
tual protection in a military league, and that its 
main design failed. He therefore sees at once that 
in the face of so strong an argument for agreeing as 
existed in the desire of the Landgrave and the 
perils of the times, only some radical and great 

52 



DETAILED EXAMPLES. 



53 



difficulty could have kept the parties separated. 
He is therefore prepared to regard his topic as very 
important, and possibly as requiring minute and 
exact investigation. 

What was the Colloquy about ? The student 
turns to his guide-book for general church history, 
Kurtz, and finds by the index that the Colloquy is 
treated in §132, 4. He finds that the disputation 
covered most of the points of theology, but was 
principally concerned with the Lord's supper ; and 
that it closed with an agreement drawn up in fif- 
teen articles. 

What now was this dispute as to the Lord's sup- 
per? It does not appear clear in this section, al- 
though an allusion to " Sacramentarians " gives the 
student a hint that it must have its roots in ante- 
cedent history. What was the Lutheran doctrine 
as to the Lord's supper, and how had it arisen ? 
He looks at the table of contents, and soon finds 
an entire section (131) devoted to the " Sacraments- 
streit," and here he finds the whole difference be- 
tween the two parties explained. He sees that 
Zwingli and his party hold to the symbolic char- 
acter of the supper ; that Luther and his, to the 
real presence of the body and blood of Christ in, 
zvith, and under the elements. He also finds that 
the two parties do not now confront each other for 
the first time ; that a long controversy has pre- 
ceded ; and that it is mixed up with the disorders 
in Wittenberg which Luther left the Wartburg to 
quell (§124,1.3.), and is connected with the name 
of the unhappy Carlstadt. There is then a prelimi- 



54 



THE SEMINARY METHOD. 



nary history which must be studied before the Col- 
loquy itself can be understood, and the sources for 
the study are the writings in which the controversy 
was carried on. Here then, the student gets his first 
introduction to the " sources," of which he imme- 
diately makes notes. They are given in §131. For 
Zwingli, the " Letter to Alber " (1524); the Com- 
mentarius de vera et falsa Religione (1525); Oeco- 
lampadius'sZV Genuina Verborum, etc. (1525); and 
the Frundlich Verglimpfung of Zwingli himself : for 
Luther, Brenz and Schnepf's Syngramma Suevicum 
(1525); Luther's Sermon vom Sacrament (1526); his 
Dass die Worte ; and finally his Bekentniss vom 
Abendmahl (1528). 

To the study of these sources for the preliminary 
history our student now determines to devote him- 
self first of all. 

First then for Zwingli's ideas he must search out 
the letter to Alber. He finds from the library cata- 
logue Zwingli's works, edition of Schulerand Schult- 
hess, Zurich, 1828, etc., bound in nine volumes. The 
general index he finds in vol. iv., where there is 
also an index alpJiabeticus epistolarum which refers 
him at once to a letter to Alber, vol. vii., p. 285, but 
its contents are not such as are indicated by Kurtz, 
and it is of the previous year. The student there- 
fore makes a note like this: "? Zwingli's letter to 
Alber of 1524 (Kurtz, §131);" lays it aside for 
future answer, and goes on with his explorations in 
Zwingli. The reference to the section of Kurtz 
will enable him, in case he forgets the precise point 
of the query, to refresh his mind, and so not lose 



DETAILED EXAMPLES. tt 

the thing sought, as might be the case, if he should 
have to wait for months before finding anything 
that answered to his want, as one has often to do. 

Having the complete index of Zwingli's works 
before him, our student determines to see if there 
are any other works not mentioned in Kurtz which 
promise him help in his preliminary study. He 
finds vol. ii., part i., p. 426 : Ein klare underrichtung 
vom nachtmal Christie 1526 ; ib. p. 469 : Antwurt. . . 
iiber doctor Strussen biichlin .... das nachtmal Ch. 
betreffende ; part ii. opens with three tracts against 
corresponding writings of Luther, pp. I-223. If 
the literature were scanty, our student would do 
well to look at such tracts as the answer to Egg, 
vol. ii., part ii., p. 484 ff., which presents Zwingli's 
doctrine in its antithesis to the papal doctrine ; but 
here he may practise "judicious skipping, 5 ' and 
confine himself to what bears directly on the point 
in hand. A preface written by Zwingli to a work 
by Schwenkfeld (vol. ii., part iii., p. 22) next attracts 
his attention. It is short. It had better be dis- 
patched at once. The only words suggesting any 
idea that seems likely to prove fruitful are : " Sofolget 
dann die dnliche, dass der lyb Cliristi, geistlich geessen, 
die seel spy se,glych wie daslyblich brod den lychnam" 
These are therefore noted, with reference. The 
Friindlich Verglimpfimg is found in vol. ii., part 
ii., p. 1. ; also the two treatises in direct reply to 
Luther: Dass dise wort Jesn Christi : ' Das ist min 
lycknam* etc. p. 16; and, Uber doctor Martin 
Luthers buck, bekenntnus genamit, etc. p. 94. The 
Commentarius appears at vol. iii. p. 145. There 



^ 6 THE SEMINAR Y ME THOD. 

follow it several tracts, letters, etc., on the same 

subject: Subsidium de Eucharistia, p. 326; 

Resfonsio brevis. . . . in qua de eucharistia quaestio 
tractatur, p. 438; Arnica exegesis, etc. p. 459; and 
now the letter to Alber which had been sought in 

vain : Ad MattJiaeum Alber am de Coena 

Domini, p. 589: Responsio, p. 604. The tract ad- 
dressed to Lambert, p. 615, is found to contain a 
page of discussion of the sacrament, but in so brief 
and general a manner that it may safely be left with- 
out further study. Vol. iv. gives us the CJiristianae 
fidei. . . . brevis et clara cxpositio, p. 42. Pages 
173-204 contain the accounts of the Colloquy itself. 

How, now, is the student to master this vast mass 
of material without exhausting all his strength upon 
a mere portion of his task ? The answer is given by 
a close consideration of the nature of that task. He 
is to find the significance of the Marburg Colloquy, 
and he wishes to know what Zwingli will bring to 
that Colloquy likely to determine its course or 
explain its meaning. The two things he will bring 
are evidently his doctrinal opinions and his personal 
relations with the opposing party. These are 
therefore the present objects of the student's search. 

The doctrinal views will be found best by taking 
the most mature and systematic treatise written 
before the Colloquy. If our topic required the his- 
tory of the genesis of those views, we should be 
compelled to consider all those writings in due 
order, to obtain the process of thought through 
which Zwingli went. But the maturest and latest 
writing before the Colloquy will give the views he 



DETAILED EXAMPLES. 



57 



brought to it, and we may therefore begin with the 
latest and follow them back, as occasion may seem 
to require. 

But little examination of the controversial writ- 
ings is necessary to show that they are too exclu- 
sively replies to other writings to afford that rapid 
and systematic view of Zwingli's opinions which we 
now seek. The Expositio (iv., 42) comes subse- 
quently to the Colloquy and is therefore not now in 
point. We are therefore referred to the Commenta- 
rins (iii., 145) for our main source. 

We cannot follow the student's work over this 
treatise at every step and through all its details. 
The task is a comparatively simple one. It is to 
read that portion of it (pp. 228-234, 239-272) relat- 
ing to the Lord's supper, extracting every impor- 
tant idea, developing in systematic, and sometimes 
in tabulated form, the doctrinal formulations, the 
scriptural proofs, the general arguments, etc., until 
the doctrine stands out clearly before his mind as it 
did before that of Zwingli himself. Enough for our 
present purpose to say that the student will find 
that Zwingli denies the presence of the body and 
blood of Christ in the Lord's supper, and insists on 
the necessity of faith to the reception of the proper 
benefit from the sacrament. 

As to the personal relations of Zwingli with his 
opponents, we need to know first what Luther's dis- 
position towards Zwingli was, and must therefore 
defer this point to the next stage of the investiga- 
tion. 

How shall the sources for the study of Luther be 



58 



THE SEMINA R Y ME THOD. 



opened? Let us suppose the student finds the 
Erlangen edition of Luther's works in the library. 
The last two volumes of the German part contain a 
minute index to the principal topics touched upon in 
the series of 103 volumes. But there is no general 
table of contents. Examination of the Latin works 
shows that they are mostly commentaries, and that 
none of them contain anything of direct reference 
to the subject in hand. Amid such a mass of mate- 
rials, surely those ideas of Luther's which the theme 
demands will be found without the examination of 
every train of thought and expression. We may 
look for the principal treatise on the subject and 
trust that as our sources turn out to be incomplete, 
we shall be able to detect this, and by means of the 
index refer to further sources. 

Volume 33, Latin, contains a sermon De digna 
prceparatione cordis pro sumendo sacramento encha- 
risticE (15 18). A short examination shows that it is 
entirely practical. Vol. 34 also has an address De 
confessione et sacramento eucharisticz, but it is 
directed against the papists, and does not enter into 
the nature of the sacrament itself. The earlier Ger- 
man volumes also contain nothing. Vol. 21 gives 
the " Smaller Catechism " in which the nature of the 
sacrament is briefly defined (p. 19). The student 
should here make an exact note of the words of 
this definition, the full meaning of which will doubt- 
less appear later. The " Larger Catechism" dis- 
cusses the subject more at length (pp. 141-155). 
The student sees that the distinction made between 
Zwingli and Luther in Kurtz is justified, but he 



DETAILED EXAMPLES. 



59 



gets no light upon a question which now begins to 
trouble him; viz., how did Luther come to conceive 
of the presence of the body and blood of Christ in 
the sacrament in this fashion, and what did he mean 
by it? He therefore turns on for other sources. 
Vol. 22, p. 38 gives a sermon upon the sacrament, 
from which the student may extract the single re- 
mark: " doss man mehr Achten hab auf die Worte 
denn auf das Zeichen" (p. 40). Vol. 23 has an ex- 
hortation to make use of the sacrament, of the year 
1530, i.e., after the Colloquy. It is also of a purely 
practical character. It need not be quoted. Vol. 
26, gives us at page 370 a letter of "warning" 
addressed to the council and city of Frankfort 
against Zwingli's doctrine, written in the year 1532. 
This may throw light on Luther's agreement with 
Zwingli at Marburg. It should therefore be noted 
for future reference. 

With vol. 27 the more important treatises begin. 
There is the " Sermon on the venerable Sacrament," 
p. 25 ; " Explanation of certain Articles," etc., p. 
70. Vol. 29 gives us: "Against the heavenly 
Prophets " (1524) ; " Sermon upon the Sacrament " 
(1526). Vol. 30 adds: " Dass diese Worte Chrisii 
' das ist mein Leib, etc' nock f est steken" (1527); 
and: Bekenntniss vom Abendmahl (1528). With 
vol. 32 we pass out beyond the period of the Col- 
loquy, rinding a Kurzes Bekenntniss Dr. Martin 
Luther s vom heiligen Sacrament (1545)- Vols. 
53-56 inclusive contain Luther's German letters 
which may afford valuable help. 

Here again the student finds himself confronted 



6 THE SEMINARY METHOD. 

with a mass of material and repeats the question, 
How shall he find the point at which to begin? 
The answer is derived from the nature of the case. 
He wishes to know just what Luther brought with 
him to the conference at Marburg, and hence he 
infers that it will be well to begin with that treatise 
prior to the Colloquy which contains Luther's sen- 
timents in the fullest and most exact form. He 
may well ask the director of the seminary how far 
it will be necessary to understand the process of 
development through which Luther passed, and the 
answer will be that it is of considerable importance. 
He will therefore decide on the following course of 
proceeding. After having found the sum of Luther's 
opinions from the best single treatise he can select, 
he will begin at the beginning of the series of trea- 
tises and follow down, carefully noting any varying 
ideas he may find, and thus preparing to trace the 
history of the development. The Bckcnntniss (vol. 
30, p. 151) turns out to be the best, as it is the 
latest source of Luther's doctrine. It is divided 
into three parts as indicated in the short note of the 
editor preceding the treatise itself. The first is a 
refutation of opponents, the second (p. 301) the exe- 
getical portion, the third (p. 363) is the Bekenntniss 
proper. He therefore turns to the last and begins 
the study precisely as he did with Zwingli's Com- 
ment arius. 

The student has now studied and formulated the 
doctrinal views of both parties to the Colloquy. He 
has obtained a view of the conditions under which 
the Germans and Swiss assembled. The strong 



DETAILED EXAMPLES. fa 

personal feeling of Luther against the Swiss view, 
which must have come before him in innumerable 
instances as he has been examining other points, 
and the equally strong language of Zwingli in reply 
to Luther's epithets, have betrayed to him the fact 
that there is a large degree of prejudice existing 
between the parties. What now was the actual 
course of events at the Colloquy ? 

This question resolves itself first into a new 
hunt for sources. Kurtz again gives him a hint. 
Schirrmacher has a book entitled : Briefe und Akten 
zu der Geschichte des Religionsgesprdchs zu Mar- 
burg, 1529, und des Reichstages zu Augsburg, 1530. 
Gotha, 1876. Erichson another: Das Marburger 
Gesprach nach ungedruckten Urkunden. Strassburg, 
1880. If the university library is extensive enough, 
or these books can be ordered for this work, they 
should be had and consulted. But how shall the 
student make his way without such collections, 
among the more general sources which he will or- 
dinarily find in the library ? Suppose he cannot 
have these books, what next ? This will be the 
most useful question for us to answer. 

The valuable sources will be found in the works 
of contemporaries, and these will be in the first 
instance, Luther and Zwingli themselves. Vol. iv. 
Lat. of Zwingli's works gives several Latin accounts 
of the Colloquy. One account is by Collinus, a 
follower of Zwingli. Another by Melancthon. 
Others by Luther, Oecolampadius, Bucer, Scultetus, 
and Brenz. Luther's own account is short, and 
consists chiefly of a defence of his personal position 



62 THE SEMINARY METHOD. 

towards the Zwinglians. It may be dismissed for 
Luther's own larger account, if there be any such, 
as we may expect. The other accounts must be 
read and compared. Since the purpose is to find 
the dogmatic ideas presented, the most convenient 
method will be to abandon the attempt to present 
the Colloquy as it actually proceeded, and to classify 
the arguments under such heads as maybe found to 
be appropriate. Each author may be read consecu- 
tively, his distinct arguments set down as they 
come, and then from the accounts thus gained, a 
classified view may be made. They will be found 
to gather about three points : The meaning of the 
text, This is my body; The bearing of the texts in 
the vi. of John ; and The necessary nature of the 
human body. 

Will anything be added by what is found in 
Luther's own works ? Not by the letter to the 
Landgrave (54, 153); nothing by the letter to his 
wife (54, 107); in short, nothing except the articles 
signed at the Colloquy. This lack of materials in 
Luther himself may seem so astonishing to the stu- 
dent that he may begin to suspect, even after he 
has made repeated examinations of the indexes of 
Luther's works, that he has failed to find some 
source of Luther's own writing as to this impor- 
tant Colloquy. How shall he remedy the defects 
of his edition, and get at the facts in spite of its 
failure ? In such cases it is well to go to some 
writer who has treated the subject fully in some 
aspect, even if not in that which is before the stu- 
dent himself. D'Aubigne furnishes such a means 



DETAILED EXAMPLES. 



63 



of help in this case. An examination of his refer- 
ences to his authorities shows that he finds some 
interesting, though not essential particulars in 
Luther's letters. If the student is restricted to the 
Erlangen edition, he will be unable to follow these, 
for they are to another edition. He may perhaps 
have the other sources mentioned, in which case he 
can pursue his researches farther. 

Has not Melancthon something? The indexes, 
which are quite inadequate, give no suggestions. 
Can there be anything in his letters ? These have 
no index of subjects, and so he is restricted to ex- 
amining the letters of the year 1529 for something 
on the conference. He is rewarded by a number of 
accounts (Corp. Ref. 1. 1066, 1096, 1097, 1098, 1106, 
1 108,) which, however, add little if anything to the 
information already in hand. 

The discussion having been thus followed down, 
the next question is as to the result of the whole. 
It is well known that Luther prepared certain arti- 
cles upon which all agreed. They are found in 
German in Luther's works (65, 88) and in German 
and Latin in Zwingli's (Vol. iii., 3d. div. p. 52, and 
Vol. iv., p. 181, respectively). The German, though 
differing decidedly in dialect in the two versions is 
evidently the original, since it agrees substantially, 
and as no two translations of a Latin original could. 
The exact points of agreement are now easily de- 
cided upon by the student. 

But another interesting document falls under his 
notice. It is Zwingli's " Notes to the fifteen Arti- 
cles," written in Latin, but referring to the German 



64 THE SEMINA RY ME THOD. 

original. Its peculiarities will probably sharpen in 
the mind of the student a question which has already 
begun to impress him : How was it that Luther 
came to his doctrine, and why did he hold so tena- 
ciously to it ? The superficial answer would be that 
Luther found his doctrine in the Scriptures and was 
"held by the word," as he himself says. So he 
was. But what made him understand the word 
thus? The interpretation he defended is by no 
means necessary. It must have been given by his 
general conception of Christian doctrine, his views, 
which formed from philosophy or the analogy of the 
Scriptures, he brought to the passage, rather than 
simply the passage itself. What were those views? 

A phrase of Luther's repeated in many places 
(Zwingli's works iv., p. 190 in Latin, Vos habetis 
alium spiritum quam nos\ " Your spirit is other than 
ours,'* suggests to him that here is the ground of 
difference and of Luther's opinions. 

To see the full significance of this phrase will 
require more knowledge of the history than our 
student has, perhaps more will be required even to 
see that it is significant at all. But if he sees so 
much, a question to the director will bring the 
answer that the difference of spirit is in the funda- 
mental tendencies of the two systems, Lutheran and 
Reformed. 

Now, obviously, to estimate the fundamental dif- 
ference of two great systems of thought will require 
a minute examination of both. But here is a defi- 
nite point before the student ; viz., the Marburg 
Colloquy, which was concerned about the Lord's 



DETAILED EXAMPLES. 



65 



supper. What is there in this Colloquy bearing on 
the systems and their "spirit"? In other words, 
what is there in the doctrine of the Lord's supper 
which constitutes a decisive difference between the 
Lutheran and the Reformed systems? Here again, 
probably recourse must be had to the director. The 
answer will point out to the student that the con- 
ception of the " means of grace " in the two systems 
is different, and the next question will be : What 
are the " means of grace " ? and then, How are they 
understood by the parties to operate ? 

The materials for the answer to these questions 
should be already in the notes of the student. If 
not, he must read again significant portions of 
Luther's mature treatise upon the Lord's supper 
(especially 29, 334) with Zwingli's Commentariiis 
and Notes on the Articles. 

The conclusion of his work will probably be that 
there was a fundamental difference of conception as 
to what was to be accomplished by the sacrament 
before the Colloquy, and hence no possibility of 
agreement as to the nature of the sacrament at the 
Colloquy itself. And it will be foreseen by the 
prophetic eye of the historian that the difference of 
the two systems being discovered at Marburg, that 
difference must be either removed or intensified 
after it. And hence the doctrinal significance of 
the Marburg Colloquy will be the final separation of 
the two systems upon the question of the spirituality 
of religion. 

A complete discussion will, however, not fail to in- 
clude those other elements of the matter which the 
5 



66 THE SEMINA R Y ME THOD. 

student has already gathered, and show how the two 
parties were inclined toward each other and what 
of fellowship might be expected between them. 
Hence in some sense also the political outcome of 
the Colloquy can be seen in the Colloquy itself. 
On the whole then, the result is a clear perception 
of the difference between the two systems, and the 
deliberate opinion on the part of the Lutherans that 
all ecclesiastical communion and every form of alli- 
ance which shall imply this, is against conscience. 

II. Diplomatic Relations of the United States 
with Great Britain, 1 861-1865. 

We will now, somewhat more briefly, explain the 
method of original study by means of an illustration 
drawn from political history, of the greatest interest 
to every American, The Diplomatic Relations of 
the United States to Great Britain in the years of 
our Civil War. It may be premised that the object 
of this example is not to carry the student into such 
a study of the subject as shall result in an exhaus- 
tive history of these relations, inasmuch as this 
would be beyond the time and powers of the stu- 
dent, and therefore beyond the office of the seminary. 
It will be our endeavor to open the subject, to suggest 
the lines of inquiry, to raise some of the principal 
questions, to set the student on the track of the 
best sources, to consider a smaller portion of the 
field with a greater degree of minuteness, and then 
leave him to follow out the course suggested so far 
as time and inclination may lead. 

In a region so new as this is, it is evident that it 



DETAILED EXAMPLES. 



6 7 



cannot be expected there will be a guide-book such 
as has been employed in the last article in opening 
the Marburg Colloquy. The search for some equiv- 
alent, therefore, begins the investigation. A general 
knowledge of the progress of the war as contained 
in various smaller histories must be presupposed. 
If the student does not have it, he must begin by 
obtaining it. This done, the most convenient guide- 
book will probably be found to be " The Annual 
Cyclopaedia," published by D. Appleton & Co., con- 
taining digested summaries of the diplomatic history 
of each year, as well as numerous other articles use- 
ful to the student. 

The first step is therefore to read the articles of 
this Cyclopaedia which shall give a general view cf 
the subject, noting the points which are presented. 
The student will thus learn what is generally re- 
garded as important, and obtain a sense of the per- 
spective of his subject, equally important with a 
knowledge of the mere facts. 

Turning now to the volume for 1861, he finds the 
article " Great Britain " (p. 347). He notes the proc- 
lamation of neutrality by the Queen, May 13 ; the 
demands made by the South for recognition of the 
Confederacy; the influence of the manufacturing 
interests of England in giving emphasis to this 
demand ; the taking of Mason and Slidell from the 
" Trent," Nov. 8 ; the repair of the " Nashville " in 
Southampton harbor; the demand for the restitution 
of Mason and Slidell ; troops in Canada ; yielding to 
the English demand by the American government. 

The article "Trent" in the same volume has been 



68 THE SEMINAR Y ME THOD. 

referred to in the course of the article already read. 
It must be a cardinal principle with the student 
in conducting his researches through any field so 
untraversed as this largely is, without the guides to 
be obtained in other subjects, to be keenly alive to 
every suggestion of further information, not letting 
slip a single chance of gaining information, however 
small it may appear. He therefore turns to the 
article referred to, and here finds not only the outline 
of the story of the events, but his first contact with 
original sources in the extracts from the English 
report, and from an officer of the " San Jacinto." 
The process of taking notes should begin here ; the 
principal events being noted briefly, with full refer- 
ences to book and page, and these notes put away 
in a suitable portfolio-like cover. The mastery of 
the subject will depend as much upon this as upon 
anything else, whether the student shall so make his 
notes, and so arrange them under appropriate heads 
and sub-heads, that the subject shall lie before him 
in its logical relations when he begins to review it 
preparatory to writing it up. 

Pursuing the Cyclopaedia, the next volume 
(1862) under the same heading ''Great Britain," 
yields the following points (which as belonging to a 
new year, should be noted on a separate piece of 
paper) : death of the Prince Consort : resolutions 
for the recognition of the Southern Confederacy 
presented in Parliament ; efforts to break the 
blockade ; construction of Confederate vessels in 
English ports ; position of Earl Russell. 

The year 1863 gives us: the escape of the "Ala-- 



DETAILED EXAMPLES. 69 

bama" ; the foreign enlistment act violated ; other 
vessels in construction ; notice of the intention to 
reclaim all losses incurred through the " Alabama " ; 
demands in England for the recognition of the Con- 
federacy by those disturbed in efforts to run the 
blockade ; Mr. Adams's letter to Messrs. Howell & 
Zirman, and the excitement in Parliament over it ; 
specially Mr. Cobden's remarks that the " Naviga- 
tion " and " Foreign Enlistment " acts are in favor 
of maintaining friendly relations with the United 
States (marking this note by some sign which shall 
mean "Look up specially"); Mr. Roebuck's at- 
tempt for the recognition of the Confederacy ; evi- 
dences of public feeling, such as H. W. Beecher in 
England. Mr. Jeff. Davis's bitterness in denounc- 
ing England for refusing recognition to the Confed- 
eracy being mentioned, the student is put on the 
track of the Southern diplomatic correspondence as 
a source of information as to the nature of the at- 
tempts made by the Southern government for recog- 
nition. He makes a note thus : " ? Where can I 
get hold of the Confederate correspondence, and 
what value has it for my theme ? " and files the note 
away among the others. 

In 1864: discussion in Parliament as to the rela- 
tions of the two countries ; Mr. Cobden's proposal 
of an addition to the Foreign Enlistment act (this 
suggests the importance of- the act, and calls for a 
special note of query) ; sinking of the " Alabama " 
pressure to recognize the Southern Confederacy 
stir about immigration into the United States 
Queen's speech proroguing Parliament ; bazaar at 



JO 



THE SEMINARY METHOD. 



Liverpool for aiding Confederate prisoners in the 
North ; correspondence. 

In 1865 : address to the Queen expressing indig- 
nation at the assassination of President Lincoln ; 
depredations of Confederate cruisers; the " Shenan- 
doah. " 

The inexperienced student will now be likely to 
look out the originals of the diplomatic correspond- 
ence and begin to take notes on them. But this is 
not properly the next step. It is an elementary 
principle that with a guide-book in hand, all the 
help it can furnish should be exhausted before the 
sources themselves are touched. Sources which are 
to be examined more fully later should not be 
quoted from the guide-book, but this will serve to 
show what are the interesting and leading events, 
and what the authorities for them, and thus the 
progress of the student in mastering the details will 
be greatly facilitated. The danger is constantly of 
his being swamped in details before gaining a gen- 
eral comprehension of the field. He may possibly 
be rendered utterly unable to rise above the disad- 
vantage thus laid upon him. He resolves therefore 
to continue his reading in Appleton. 

With the five distinct years of diplomatic history 
before him, the student will find it the best method 
to study each year somewhat by itself. Having got 
the general field before him, he may now get a 
more minute knowledge of each year, as much, at 
least, as can be obtained from Appleton. Then he 
may take each year again by itself, and treat it as 
he has the whole period, studying it in sections r go- 



DETAILED EXAMPLES. y I 

ing back and forth over it, and performing the study 
more thoroughly each time he reviews. Thus going 
through the whole period he will finally have the 
best understanding of it which he can obtain. In 
taking notes, and also in performing his study, let 
him not suppose that everything he gets is to be 
put into his final essay. The turning of a phrase 
may demand the study of an important sub-topic 
which he may not ultimately find place for. If so, 
since the phrase must be right, the study must be 
done. It may form a starting-point for further re- 
searches at other times. It may remain without 
distinct use. But it will be like the ribs of the ship, 
out of sight to him who enjoys the comforts of the 
cabin, but absolutely essential to those comforts. 
It should be the student's principle that not a word 
which does not have an honest meaning to himself, 
and for which he does not himself know the reason, 
shall enter into his essay. 

Taking up thus the year 1861, the student pur- 
sues his Appleton. He turns to the article, " Diplo- 
matic Correspondence of the United States Govern- 
ment." It is all to be carefully read so far as the 
heading " Prussia," and then the heading "Great, 
Britain " beginning at page 262 takes up the matter 
more immediately before the student. Such ab- 
stracts, notes, and suggestions should be made as to 
the contents of the papers here presented, as shall 
serve quickly to bring their contents to the student's 
mind. The accessibility of the book removes the 
necessity of copying what will have to be re-copied 
again for the thesis. Note the suggestion at the 



n 2 THE SEMINAR Y ME THOD. 

end of this portion of the article, Otherwise " no im- 
portant principle was disputed." The " Trent " af- 
fair is found at a later page (276). This answers the 
query for the diplomatic correspondence, and notes 
as to it. should be added to those already made on 
the article, "Trent." It will be well also to read 
the French diplomacy carefully, since France and 
England are so connected that they may be ex- 
pected to act in concert in their diplomatic negotia- 
tions with America. In fact, traces of this connec- 
tion begin immediately to appear. 

The keen eye of the inquiring student will not 
fail to see that the article on the diplomatic corre- 
spondence of the United States is followed by one 
on the correspondence of the Confederate States. 
This will afford him an answer to the query already 
filed, and he reads the article at once. References 
must be made to such topics as : recognition of the 
Confederate States by England ; justification of se- 
cession ; subject of slavery ; complaints of discrim- 
ination against the Southern States in the matter of 
privateers ; the blockade. A partial answer to the 
question where the Southern correspondence will be 
found, is given by the source of several of these 
letters. It will be in the diplomatic correspondence 
of Great Britain. 

The student is now prepared to begin his original 
researches for himself, having exhausted his guide- 
book. Where is the diplomatic correspondence of 
the United States ? and that of Great Britain ? 
The American correspondence is found in the " Sen- 
ate Documents" for 1861-62 and subsequent years, 



DETAILED EXAMPLES. 73 

in a long series of volumes. These will be in every 
respectable American library. The English cor- 
respondence will probably be found in few. The 
" Annual Register,' an English publication corre- 
sponding to our "Annual Cyclopaedia," will furnish 
the most important documents, if this is in the li- 
brary to which the student has access. 

The study of the sub-topics now begins. The first 
will be the commercial relations suggested in the 
circular addressed to Mr. Charles Francis Adams etc., 
by the Secretary of State, found in the " Annual," 
page 258. Terms here occur like " privateering," 
" contraband of war," "blockade," which the stu- 
dent now needs to understand in the most exact 
manner. Where shall he find their definition? 
They are terms in international law, and ought to 
be defined in the treatises on that subject. The 
library catalogue gives him, among other treatises, 
Woolsey's, in which all of these terms are fully de- 
fined. General principles in reference to these sub- 
jects are discussed in the circular, and the question 
arises : What is the fate of the negotiations here 
begun ? The student seeks the speediest answer 
possible. He turns to Appleton again for help. 
The subject appears discussed under the title, 
" Privateering." Here is explained the reason why 
the United States government was against the 
clause forbidding privateering ; also the existence 
of the law in reference to blockades. Various other 
references should be made from this article, such as 
the discussion in Parliament about the relation of 
the Confederate privateering to piracy (p. 589) ; 



74 THE SEMINARY METHOD. 

trial of crews of privateers (590) ; no letters of mar- 
que from the United States (592). The article does 
not give the close of the negotiations for which the 
student is seeking. He must look elsewhere. He 
therefore turns now to the original diplomatic cor- 
respondence, making a query as to these negotia- 
tions to be answered as the investigation proceeds. 

The student has probably noticed in connection 
with the diplomatic correspondence in Appleton, a 
heading, " Public Documents," and made a refer- 
ence to this. If he now looks it up, he will find the 
proclamation of neutrality made by Queen Victo- 
ria, May 13th. Here will be found the answer to 
the question about the " Enlistment Act," the sub- 
stance of which is here incorporated. 

The examination of the diplomatic correspond- 
ence may now begin. The volume for 1861-62 
contains on pages 31-6, 71-182, as indicated by the 
index, the material to be examined. As this 
begins, Mr. Adams's name becomes more and more 
prominent, and it will be seen to be important to 
know his history, which is accordingly looked up 
(American Cyclopaedia). In the examination of the 
correspondence, two courses may be pursued, 
either the student may search for particulars per- 
taining to the separate topics severally, or he may 
read the whole in course and note the particulars 
as he comes to them, sorting his references subse- 
quently and then examining the documents anew 
under each head as may be necessary. The latter 
course will prove the more economical of time. 
The former would also effectually prevent him from 



DETAILED EXAMPLES. 



75 



discovering much that might be new and not sug- 
gested in his guide-book. Accordingly he will read 
on, making such notes as the following as he goes. 
First of all come the instructions of the new Minis- 
ter (p. 71). Note the American fear of recognition; 
the statement of the case of the nation as it appears 
to the Secretary, and is to be made to appear to 
foreign powers ; the mention of the resources of the 
nation ; specific statement that foreign powers are 
not to suppose that they can recognize the Confed- 
eracy and remain friends of the United States ; 
and similar statements here and there. 

The student who is on the lookout for hints, finds 
quotations from the "Times" introduced into these 
documents. This will suggest that the feeling of 
the English public leading to the demand on their 
part for the recognition of the Southern Confederacy 
can be best learned from such a. paper. In the 
same way, the great American newspapers, like the 
" New York Tribune," may be examined. If files of 
these are in the library, special notes should be 
made of the dates under which each reference to 
matter capable of illumination from such sources 
occurs, and the papers about those dates looked 
up.* 

The student proceeds thus from page to page of 

this correspondence. The Confederate States are 

raised to the rights of belligerents (p. 86). To this 

* I am informed that several books published by Southern writers 
since the war contain material as to the attempts of the Southern 
Confederacy to secure recognition, as, for example, Davis's "Rise and 
Fall of the Confederate Government," and " The Southern His- 
torical Papers." 



7 6 



THE SEMINARY METHOD. 



note others will be added subsequently, as, for ex- 
ample, reference to page 92. Page 89 gives several 
notes, blockade, privateering, etc., which may be re- 
ferred to notes already made, or taken upon new 
pieces of paper and afterwards sorted into their proper 
places. The English government evidently being un- 
willing to respect a paper blockade and thinking that 
our proposed blockade could not become anything 
more, it may be well to examine this subject now, 
or better to make a note and look it up later. 
(Prof. J. R. Soley's little book upon "The Blockade 
and the Cruisers " will be a help in understanding 
this subject.) On page 89 will be found also the 
term exequatur used of a consul. The student must 
understand the paragraphs as he goes over them, 
as well as make notes, and so he must now look up 
the subject of consuls, which he will find explained 
in the treatises on international law. (See Wool- 
sey's, p. 169.) Page 98, Mr. Adams's investigations 
as to the reception of Confederate privateers in Brit- 
ish ports. 

The student thus proceeds, noting everything 
which he deems important, but hastening on as fast 
as possible to the " Trent " affair which he knows to 
be coming in the distance. If he is a novice in in- 
ternational affairs, his eye will be caught by the case 
of the British consul at Charleston, Mr. Robert 
Bunch. He will note pp. 131, 150, 155, 165, and the 
apparent close of the subject upon pp. 6-12 of 
Executive Documents for 1862-63. This is, how- 
ever, a mere episode of the diplomacy. 

He now comes to the " Trent " affair itself. The 



DETAILED EXAMPLES. 



77 



problem here is to get the facts, the principles of in- 
ternational law, the negotiations, and the adjustment. 
As the subject was very important, and it is at once 
evident that, in a nation like the United States, 
such questions must be discussed by the public, and 
public discussion will more or less extensively influ- 
ence cabinet action, it becomes peculiarly important 
to trace the course of the history in the various pub- 
lic prints. Suppose our student to take the " New 
York Tribune " as an example of these. He will find 
the first mention of the matter in the number for 
Nov. 18, 1861. Not only do the news columns 
mention the event, but there is a very discreet edi- 
torial. Note should be made of the clear percep- 
tion by Mr. Greeley of the possible bearing of the 
question on the British contention in favor of the 
"Right of Search." The files of the paper may 
now be examined, and notes made of such editorials 
as that of Dec. 17, where the whole theory of the 
English upon neutral rights is discussed, and of 
Dec. 27, where " Naval Precedents " are treated, 
and of the editorials and official papers contained in 
the issue for Dec. 30. We find here the full text of 
the final communication of the Secretary of State, 
arguing the case and surrendering the prisoners. 

The question of the past history of this subject 
in the United States and Great Britain is suggested 
to the student. He may now assume a knowledge 
of that history upon the representations of the offi- 
cial documents with which he is dealing, or he may 
investigate it more thoroughly. To facilitate speed 
in disposing of his present theme, he will best con- 



73 



THE SEMINARY METHOD. 



suit the treatises on international law for the prin- 
ciples, and some elementary history for the main 
line of events. He may then turn to the careful 
study of the dispatches. These will be found for 
the most part in the volume " Executive Docu- 
ments," 1862-3. They begin p. 62, and are found 
in the subsequent context, as well as upon p. 276 f., 
in connection with dispatches addressed to Lord 
Lyons. 

After these dispatches are considered, the impor- 
tance of the case suggests more careful examination 
of the literature of the subject. The student will 
find the " * Trent ' affair" discussed by John Bright, 
Charles Sumner, Woolsey, who refers also to Mar- 
quardsen, Der Trait-Fall, Erlangen, 1862. Poole's 
Index, under the term " Right of Search,'' will give 
references to a number of articles in magazines. 

We must now leave the student to prosecute his 
studies in this fascinating theme for himself. The 
remaining years must be studied after the same 
manner. The study of the diplomatic documents 
read in the light of all the contemporary coloring 
which newspapers, articles, and other sources of 
information may be able to give him, will soon show 
him the truth and its meaning as to every special 
event. The perspective of the events will become 
more evident as he proceeds. Repeated reviews of 
what he has already gathered, under the necessity 
of re-examining certain points to make others clear, 
will familiarize him with the whole. And at last, 
from a full mind, with accurate references and suit- 
able quotations of his authorities, he will be able to 



DETAILED EXAMPLES. jg 

present the course of the history graphically, cor- 
rectly, and in due proportion. He should seek to 
give a sufficient account of the principal literature, 
and to correct his own impressions by the opinions 
given by the most experienced historians. Thus he 
will add finish and perfection to his work. 

For a theme lying on the border between Theol- 
ogy and Philosophy, though properly to be classed 
as philosophical, we select : — 

III. Augustine s Conception of the Constitution 
of the Human Mind. 

The student should receive with this topic some 
instruction from the director as to its meaning and 
importance.* The topic in Augustine of greatest 
importance for the knowledge of all subsequent sys- 
tems, and particularly those of the Reformation, is 
the Will. No theologian of experience in the study 
of Christian doctrine can have failed to see how 
both forms of expression and substantial elements 
of doctrine were confused for lack of a clear psy- 
chology in every church writer down to and includ- 
ing the Westminster divines. To discover just 
what confusion entered in at this point, and how 
language has been influenced to the detriment of the 
intended meaning by false analogies or false concep- 
tions of the mind, will be to make progress not only 
in understanding Augustine and his successors, but 
in criticising their positions fairly, and in estimating 
the value of the principles they maintained. 

* See its place in a list of topics of study by the " Seminary " in 
Oberlin Theological Seminary, Winter 1888, on page 118 below. 



g THE SEMINARY METHOD. 

The topic is then to be understood of the faculties 
of the mind, of its great divisions into intellect, sen- 
sibility, and will, and of their mutual relations. 
The student is warned by his director not to discuss 
the doctrine of" the freedom of the will, since that 
depends upon this subject for its full understanding, 
and will be best handled by another member of the 
seminary. Thus the topic is clearly defined. 

How, now, shall the subject be opened ? The 
student may find a few guide-books, as for example 
Cunningham's " St. Austin " and Uberweg's " His- 
tory of Philosophy." Let these suffice for examples. 
The former has a chapter upon "Truth and the 
possibility of attaining it ; " but our student soon 
finds that metaphysical questions are here discussed, 
and not the simple psychological question which 
forms his topic. Uberweg (American translation, 
i., 342) gives a few suggestions and references : 
Augustine distinguishes as faculties of the soul 
memory, intellect, and will ; all passions are mani- 
festations of the will {De Civ. Dei. xiv., 6 ; De Trin. 
x., 13, ix., 4, xv., 22, De Lib. Arb. ii., 19). But in 
general there is no treatment of the subject here. 
Evidently the topic is new, and must be searched 
out by the student for himself. 

He turns to the sources, Augustine's works, 
having in the library the edition of Migne. He 
soon finds the index volume (11), and sets about an 
examination of its contents. 

Has Augustine any special work treating of the 
soul from which this subject could be studied? 
The Operum omnium Index Alphabeticus (col. 34) 



DETAILED EXAMPLES. gl 

shows him De Anima et ejus origine in x. 475 ; De 
Spiritu et Anima, vi. 779; De Quantitate Animce, i. 
1035 ; and nothing else, nothing also on Mens or 
SpiritUs. 

The student examines these works. He finds the 
first purely theological in its character, and taken up 
almost entirely with the origin of the souk There 
is certainly nothing here except possibly stray sug- 
gestions, and these evidently few. For the present, 
at any rate, he lays the book aside. De Spiritu et 
Anima is spurious. De Quan. Animce treats of those 
problems as- to the nature of the soul gathering 
about the idea of extension. In Chap, xxiii. the 
student notes that sensation is defined, perhaps 
thus: "Sensation defined, i., 1058, bottom." He 
also sees that there is some discussion here as to 
the definition, and follows down the pages till he 
makes the following note : " Definition of sensation 
sharpened, i. 1063, mid. — Guarded and settled 1068." 
The treatise yields nothing more. 

Augustine therefore nowhere treats the subject as 
such. How are we to get at his opinions? The 
index volume contains also an Index generalis, and 
the student soon finds under the head Anima about 
seven columns of closely printed references to every 
part of Augustine's works (70-78). Similar collec- 
tions of references are to be found under Mens, Sen- 
sus, Voluntas, etc., etc., so that he soon sees that he 
has the. most perfect pilot into the harbor, provided 
by the patient industry of the editors of the series. 

The work then is to make a classification of the 
faculties of the mind, to search out those references 
6 



82 THE SEMINARY METHOD. 

which bear most directly upon the constitution of 
the mind under each head, and then carefully to ex- 
amine each in its context, and when its meaning is 
plain and its bearing on the subject determined, to 
reclassify and rearrange according to Augustine's 
ideas, and then write out. 

Looking under Anima, the student soon finds 
this reference : " De natura spiritus et animcs nostra 
multa ignorare, an vitio dari possit et dcbeat, x., 530." 
That is not very encouraging ; but in speaking of 
the ignorance of the nature of the soul, the writer 
may say something about the constitution of the 
soul, so far as known, and so the student makes the 
reference. Now for a number of paragraphs of ref- 
erences relating to the nature of the soul, its origin, 
its relation to God, original sin, etc. These are 
passed over rapidly, but by and by the student is 
rewarded with the reference : "Anima non est cor- 
pus, iii., 372, 425, 365. Anima non est corporea, 
iii., 480, 363 f," etc. So he proceeds, gathering 
every reference which looks likely to yield light 
upon the subject, till under the divisions of the 
mind, intellect, sensibility, and will, he has gathered 
a long list of hints and references. For example, 
under sensation he may get something which looks 

thus : 

Sensus, v. 255, 574, 624. 
What it is, i. 1058, v. 361. 
Internal and external, i. 1246. 
Senses of the body, iii. 466, v. 428. 
Senses from a point in the brain, ii. 519. 
(Pineal gland? ) 
Office, i. 786, x. 770. 
Motion from fire, iii. 282. 



DETAILED EXAMPLES. 83 

So he will go on till, having gone through the 
subject, he can examine his extracts and classify 
them. When he has them fully in mind and in 
order, little more will be necessary for the writing 
of the essay. 

There is danger here of too hastily seizing on an 
expression of Augustine's without clearly under- 
standing what is meant by it. The student must 
take pains to get the whole bearing of the context, 
and so far as possible the general drift of the work 
in which such a reference is found. At first this 
will demand a great deal of labor, and will consume 
much time ; but as it goes on it will become easier 
and easier. For example, under the head of sensa- 
tion, as marked in the first "note" suggested 
above, it will not do to seize upon the definition 
given in i., 1058, without further examination. In 
such writings a wrong definition is often given for 
the purpose of exercising the interlocutor. Not un- 
til the whole thing has been traced through, and the 
definition found finally "guarded and settled," can 
it properly be used. Note in passing, that the ref- 
erence (i. 1058) found in reading the work, appears 
again in the references obtained from the index. 
This shows how valuable the index is. 

For a suggestion to the student who may follow 
down this topic for the sake of practice, let me warn 
him against the implication in Uberweg's history of 
the expression that " all passions are manifestations 
of the will." Augustine does not mean to say that 
the passions and the will are inextricably mingled 
as faculties of the mind, but that the moral charac- 



8 4 



THE SEMINARY METHOD. 



ter of every motion of the mind depends upon the 
character of the volition, and he distinguishes quite 
carefully between the wish, the volition, and the 
resulting motion or passion. See the passage in 
full, De Civ., xiv., 6, in connection with the preced- 
ing chapter, 5. 



VI. 



THE PLACE OF ORIGINAL HISTORICAL STUDY IN 
A THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY. 

We have now finished our explanation and illus- 
tration of the historical seminary. The question 
has doubtless arisen in the mind of many a teacher 
and student of theology, whether after all, in the 
three years allotted to theological study, amid the 
numerous topics going to make up the theological 
curriculum, there is any time or strength left for 
this kind of work. Desirable as it may be in itself, 
is it on the whole desirable in an American theo- 
logical seminary of the present day? The answer 
to this question could not be given until the " sem- 
inary " itself had been explained. We may now 
however, knowing what the seminary is, and what it 
is adapted to do, ask and answer the question intel- 
ligently. 

The answer will depend entirely upon what ideal 
a man may have formed of a theological education. 
If he thinks it to be merely a preparation for the 
work of converting men and bringing them into the 
church, " seminary " work is not a necessity, and 
may be styled injurious because superfluous. Even 
theological seminaries are somewhat doubtful ex- 
periments from that point of view. We shall not 
discuss this or other theories, but will lay down the 

85 



g 6 THE S EM IN A RY ME THOD. 

general principle that the ideal theological educa- 
tion adapts itself to the man to be educated, and is 
perfect when it has given him the best preparation 
which he can receive in the time allotted to study, 
for the work of the ministry as it actually is. If 
this proposition is not sound, all the following rea- 
soning will be of little or no worth. Thus if a man 
from age, lack of discipline, or linguistic deficiencies 
cannot learn Hebrew so as to make a successful use 
of it, the ideal education not only does not require 
that he shall be dragged through a daily recitation 
in that language for a year to sustain some artificial 
"standard," but it demands that he shall not. His 
time is to be prized as gold, and used with the 
greatest economy. The student, as an individual 
with his peculiar history, talents, powers, tastes, pur- 
poses, and prospects, is one factor in the determina- 
tion of what the proper education for him is. The 
other factor is the actual ministry. It calls for 
evangelists, for great preachers, for pastors, for or- 
ganizers, for generals, for teachers, for investigators, 
for theologians. So various is it ; but in all its vari- 
ety it everywhere calls for men of independent 
power. The seminary must therefore so educate 
this student, that whatever particular studies he 
pursues, he shall gain power. 

Now power is only to be obtained by obtaining a 
good degree of mastery over something. It makes 
less difference what the subject is, but when in any 
of the great departments of theological study, the 
student feels at home, knows what to study and 
how to do it, and is confident that he can attain re- 



PLACE IN THEOLOGICAL SEMINARIES. gy 

suits which are sound and valuable, that man is a 
scholar and possesses intellectual power. Put him 
down in the slums of a great city, and he will not 
be less successful, but more so for this developed 
intellectual force. Transport him now suddenly to 
some quiet and cultured parish, where he has to 
mature the Christian character of men and women 
whose ancestors fought in Cromwell's Ironsides, 
and he can adjust himself to the new situation, and 
soon begin out of original and profound studies, to 
bring forth those things, new and old, of which his 
charge stands in need. 

We are ready to maintain that the demands on 
the ministry are greatly increasing, and that the 
call for men of original power is growing louder and 
louder, and more and more urgent. That seminaiy 
which can see the demand and so modify its meth- 
ods as to produce in much larger numbers men of 
independent power, will receive in the multitudes 
who shall flock to its halls, the conclusive proof of 
its wisdom and the abundant reward it will deserve. 

For, undeniably, the graduates of our theological 
seminaries are not, in the degree in which they 
should be, and might well be, men of independent 
power. How many letters has every theological 
professor who possesses the confidence of aspiring 
men, received, complaining that in their pastorates 
they can find no time for study but such as empties 
itself at once into the sermon, which is thus made 
crude and dangerous when fresh, or remains sound 
only at the price of dulness and vapidity ! A wise 
and fruitful pastorate demands prolonged, profound, 



8 8 THE SEMINA RY ME THOD. 

and systematic study. It can no more exist with- 
out it than can the broad river of the valley with- 
out the branching rivulets of the hills. The con- 
stant changes and increasing restlessness of the min- 
istry show that, in general, ministers cannot endure 
the strain of long pastorates. The fault lies largely in 
their education, and arises from a defect, however 
unavoidable hitherto it may have been, in the theo- 
logical seminaries. 

With the better equipment of these institutions, 
the remedy is now comparatively simple. Arrange 
the studies of each department into two groups, ele- 
mentary and advanced ; require the elementary ; 
open the advanced to free election ; insist that 
somewhere in the course the student shall go to the 
bottom of a subject ; and you have, if there is any 
mental foundation in the student, a man of devel- 
oped scholarship and independent power. If minis- 
ters knew how to study independently, they would 
not fall into the hand-to-mouth habit. If they were 
taught properly at the seminary they would know 
this. 

There is practically no difficulty with this plan. 
The professor who will vary his work from year to 
year can greatly increase the range of instruction 
without increasing his hours beyond his strength. 
If he prepares a course of lectures 300 hours in 
length, he may divide it into 100 hours of required 
work, repeated every year, and 200 hours of elective 
work of which one-half may be given in each alter- 
nate year. This is the German university method 



PLACE IN THEOLOGICAL SEMINARIES. 



8 9 



of rotation, and is one of the open secrets of the 
power of the German system. 

In this way room is made for the seminaries, — for 
they ought to be held in nearly every department. 
If a student comes to the professor of history and 
says, " I wish to do my principal work with you," the 
professor can introduce him to the seminary, and 
there can train him to independent power by actu- 
ally giving him independent investigation to carry 
on. It is precisely the method to do the work now 
most needed. It makes the student independent 
by exercising him in independence ! 

A plea for history in particular might be entered 
here. The argument for the study of history sug- 
gested in the introduction, applies with equal 
strength to the ecclesiastical field. It is within the 
bounds of moderation to say that the American 
church has an opportunity such as has never before 
been afforded to Christianity. For the first time on 
any large scale has the church been set absolutely 
free from the corrupting and entangling influences 
of a formal establishment by the State, remanded 
to her proper sphere, and furnished with both incen- 
tive and scope for the display of all her powers. 
The religious problem of our age is the develop- 
ment among us of a free, catholic, orthodox, aggres- 
sive, and successful church, in a sense in which these 
qualities have never yet been displayed in any form 
of ecclesiastical life. To seize this opportunity, 
solve this problem, and render the involved service 
to mankind, we need all the wisdom which the 
divine Teacher has stored up for us in any quarter, 



GO THE SEMINARY METHOD. 

and we need most emphatically to know the lessons 
taught by the total experience of man in the history 
of the church. 

We need equally as much the peculiar results 
which spring from the original study of history. 
We are brought as a people into ecclesiastical and 
social relations so complicated and new in the his- 
tory of the world, that we need to learn to combine 
facts and deduce results from them ourselves, before 
we are qualified to apply the lessons of history to 
our own case. And further, for American purposes 
we must have an American church history, that is, 
one wrought with American problems in mind, and 
filled with lessons prepared for American use. No 
European can write a church history which shall be 
exactly adapted to our needs. The position of 
Dean Burgon in his book upon " Disestablishment, 
the Nation's Rejection of God, and Denial of the 
Faith" may seem self-evident to him, but no Amer- 
ican could look upon historical questions from this 
standpoint, nor can we derive much help from men 
who do. Again, the elements in church life which 
interest us are different from those which are of the 
most interest to Europeans. We wish to know, 
both for apologetic and practical purposes, the real 
seat of power in the church. Does it reside always 
and by logical necessity, in whatever land, and 
under whatever form of supposed government, 
essentially in the consent of the governed ? We 
are therefore interested in tracing out many rela- 
tions and causes which are little appreciated by men 
trained under other forms of government than ours. 



PLACE IN THEOLOGICAL SEMINARIES. 



91 



We have at last found out that the European sys- 
tem is not adapted to the new conditions of Amer- 
ican life. The two oldest and best established de- 
nominations of Christians before the Revolution, the 
Episcopalians and Congregationalists, have fallen 
relatively far behind in the progress of denomina- 
tions in America ; and it is now evident that this is 
so because, among other reasons, they were too 
European in form, and could not, or did not, per- 
ceive the new conditions under which they were 
placed by the achievement of independence, and so 
failed to adapt themselves to their circumstances 
and to deserve success. It was not until a late day 
that they had fairly shaken off the evil results of 
their involvement with European ideas and prac- 
tices, worse than useless in America. Other denom- 
inations, like the Baptists and Methodists, which 
had no history and no complications, began every- 
thing anew and pressed on to the attainment of a 
great success. 

For all these reasons it is necessary that the 
American theological scholar should be an inde- 
pendent student of history, and that he should be 
trained in the best methods of independent study. 

Practically the working of a seminary need not 
be a difficult thing. Let the professor begin the 
year with general instruction as to the purpose and 
plan of the work, and assign topics in some easy 
subject, preferably in external history, and in sources 
in the English language. When some little facility 
in the work has been acquired, and it is evident 
who of the class will succeed and who not, let the 



g 2 THE SEMINA R Y ME THOD. 

unsuccessful workers be dropped, and the more diffi- 
cult themes be introduced. Let the work with the 
best students be carried through the year, parallel 
with lecture courses, and when the year is over, it 
will be found that a degree of power has been gained 
which can be acquired in no other way. 

As to the range of original work which should be 
undertaken in a theological seminary, it should be 
as extensive as that performed in any university. 
The suggestions already given contemplate work 
which is largely practice work, that is, such as shall 
train the student, rather than aim to advance knowl- 
edge. But this is not enough to satisfy the full 
ideal of a theological seminary. Practice work 
may be successfully done in college, and it is a 
necessary part of the university instruction when- 
ever the preliminary work has not been done else- 
where. The next higher grade of work is where 
sources already gathered are exploited for new in- 
formation. Such was the work done in the Johns 
Hopkins Seminary up to the year 1880.* The 
highest is where sources have to be discovered, and 
the results are in the strictest sense new to the 
learned world. Not until it reaches this work 
should the theological seminary stop. It can and 
it ought to contribute to the advance of knowledge. 
The necessities of the student and of the times 
demand it. 

* See the interesting " Circular of Information No. 2," issued by 
the Bureau of Education, entitled : "The Study of History in Amer- 
ican Colleges and Universities," by H. B. Adams, Ph. D., Washing- 
ton, 1887. 



PLACE IN THEOLOGICAL SEMINARIES. go 

A short sketch of the work done at Johns Hopkins 
in the way of exploiting unwrought mines of infor- 
mation, and of advancing knowledge by co-opera- 
tive labor in an historical seminary, will best illus- 
trate the possibilities in this direction.* This style 
of work began in the introduction of American in- 
stitutional history as a distinct branch of histori- 
cal study. The idea was derived from a seminary 
in Heidelberg, and was first realized in a series of 
lectures on the history of the Plymouth Plantations, 
by Prof. H. B. Adams, the result of researches made 
on the ground by him during the two preceding years. 
Such studies were now regularly prosecuted by the 
seminary, different members going in turn to dif- 
ferent parts of the country and studying local insti- 
tutions on the ground. The results of this work 
can be seen in the studies issued by the University 
since 1883, as for example in those for 1885, "Vir- 
ginia Local Institutions — The Land System ; Hun- 
dred ; Parish; County; Town;" in 1886, "The 
Puritan Colony at Annapolis, Maryland ;" in 1887, 
"City Government- of Chicago." We subjoin in 
the Appendix lists of topics discussed in this semi- 
nary, and will not delay upon them now. Enough 
to say that in every possible way new sources of 
history are being opened by the joint labor of these 
professors and their pupils, and the most that can 
be derived from them for a truly scientific study of 
the genesis and character of our institutions is 
elaborated and published. At the same time the 
work of practice study among the younger mem- 

* lb., p. 173. 



94 THE SEMINA R Y ME THOD. 

bers of the seminary, and of the exploration of the 
abundant original material, MS. and other, existing 
in the university library has been carried on. 
The most practical topics, such as ''Tramps," have 
been chosen, and in every way the effort to seize 
upon the yet unexhausted material for the increase 
of our knowledge, has been vigorously pushed. 

All this is possible in theological seminaries, and 
is as important for the best instruction of theolog- 
ical students as for that of any other university 
men. It is as important here as elsewhere, we 
would also urge, for the development and increase 
of knowledge in the world, to assist in which is also 
the duty of our theological seminaries. The min- 
istry must always remain one of the great literary 
classes, and do much of that volunteer work which 
contributes to the increase of knowledge, but which 
is rewarded by no pecuniary results. For this, 
there ought to be competent training in our semi- 
naries. 

There is no lack of opportunity for such work, nor 
valid objection to it. It is plain that the choice of 
topics for an American seminary should be deter- 
mined with reference to the fact that it is located 
in America and not in Germany. American uni- 
versities should not slavishly imitate any foreign 
schools, not even the German, however much we 
may be indebted to them. The writer will confess 
himself second to none in his respect for German 
scholarship ; but true honor for it does not involve 
the sacrifice of our independence, nor, unless he is 
mistaken, is such the result at which the German 



PLACE IN THEOLOGICAL SEMINARIES. 



95 



professors aim in the great expenditure of time and 
labor which they constantly make on students from 
America. Lotze once expressed the great hope he 
cherished for the future of philosophy in America. 
A German professor wrote the other day of the 
special interest he and his colleagues have in our 
young countrymen. The aim these professors have 
is to fit the American youth for doing with inde- 
pendent effort the same sort of work — not the same 
work — as is done in those homes and nurseries of 
science, the great German universities. And so it 
should be in seminary work. The method is Ger- 
man : the materials and the laborers are American ; 
and the results should be American too. The more 
exclusively laboratory, or practice side of the sem- 
inary, may be properly devoted to doing what 
others have done, or are doing, to exploring mediae- 
val German history, or the history of the Papacy, or 
the like. In some libraries the materials may be 
found for truly original researches on German, Eng- 
lish, or French ground. Doubtless if American 
scholars turn up anything here which really ad- 
vances science, their German elder brethren will ex- 
tend to them the hand of congratulation. But in 
general, the truly original work of historical semi- 
naries must be upon American, sources, or be deter- 
mined by distinctively American needs. In political 
history the field has proved to be boundless and of 
intense interest, and the materials reasonably acces- 
sible. In church history there is no less truly an 
original and to a large extent an unexplored, or at 



9 6 



THE SEMINARY METHOD. 



least uncultivated field. This is the proper subject 
for an American seminary for church history. 

It will not be understood by this that church 
doctrine, inasmuch as it deals with materials col- 
lected in Europe and for the most part embodied in 
Greek and Latin volumes, is not to be studied in a 
seminary for church history. On the contrary, we 
may possess, and in many libraries do already pos- 
sess abundant materials for this study, and hence 
may successfully pursue it. There is in this very 
line, new and unattempted work for the American 
theologian. It is an unfortunate result, but a strik- 
ing illustration of the almost exclusively German 
character of all true genetic study of church doc- 
trine, that whereas it has been studied minutely as 
respects the ancient period, or the modern Lutheran 
theology, the theology of the " Reformed " half of 
Protestantism, to which most of the American 
denominations belong, has never received adequate 
treatment. What approaches to this have been 
made, are of German making! A good, genetic, 
thoroughly scientific history of Reformed theology 
in English does not exist. Here is work for semi- 
naries, and work which Americans, from their posi- 
tion and relative independence of existing party 
complications in Europe, can do better than any 
other people. 

But there are peculiarly American subjects, and 
they are of the first importance. There may be 
those who will deny that we have a history, or be 
prepared even to throw ridicule upon it. But this 
is Philistinism, and not science. That great oppor- 



PLACE IN THEOLOGICAL SEMINARIES. 



97 



tunity now before the American church, has been 
ours for near one hundred years, and we have been 
engaged in preparing for it one hundred and fifty 
years more. If no history can be made in two 
hundred and fifty years, then none can be made in 
three hundred and fifty years, and there is no 
church history anywhere since the Reformation ! 
In fact, however, if any trained historian will read 
our church history, even as it is preserved in imper- 
fect sketches by the commendable efforts of Pun- 
chard, Gillett, Backus, and others, he will see that 
it has its distinct points of transition, and so its 
epochs, that it is proceeding from one definite 
point, and as evidently to another. It is full of in- 
teresting problems. This is the age of church com- 
prehension. The Presbyterians have united. The 
Baptists also. The Methodists are agitating the 
question of union. Prominent public prints are 
pressing the union of bodies allied in general form 
of government and belief, though of the most 
diverse historical origin, such as Congregationalists 
and Free Baptists, Episcopalians and United 
Brethren. This seems like a new thing, and an evi- 
dence of a great and growing spirit of Christian 
brotherhood. It may be the latter, but it is not the 
former, — it is as old as the century itself. In the 
year 1801 the general assembly of the newly or- 
ganized Presbyterian church and the General Asso- 
ciation of Connecticut formed the so-called Plan of 
Union, which was an honest endeavor to secure 
organic co-operation of these two bodies in the 
great work of evangelizing the new West, and 
7 



9 8 



THE SEMINARY METHOD. 



establishing there Christian churches. It failed and 
in 1837 it perished. What was the vicious element 
in that union ? What were the points where defeat 
was involved from the start? The high-churchman 
on either side, Presbyterian or Congregationalist, 
may be ready with his answer ; but what has the 
trained, philosophic historian to say ? Up to this 
day he has never spoken. 

So the influence of slavery on the church affords 
an enticing theme for investigation. Not even in 
these United States, after the last organic connec- 
tion of state and church had been broken up in 1833, 
was the church free from corrupting political or 
secular influences. In fact, no sooner was one form 
of difficulty removed, than another began in the 
rapidly intensifying conflict with slavery. Its out- 
ward effects in the division of churches and in the 
great war, are plain enough. How much had it to 
do with the paralysis of doctrinal and missionary 
activity in both North and South ? Such questions 
are still unanswered, — almost unraised. 

But peculiarly American topics for seminary study 
are not exhausted here. We have new and fresh 
material in the sphere of Christian doctrine, — the 
Hamlet of the historical drama. New England has 
been the great battle-field of American theological 
discussion as Virginia was of the late war. It may 
be the voice of denominational enthusiasm, but we 
believe it to be the coming verdict of history, that 
the New England school of orthodox divines em- 
braces names of true greatness, and has performed 
services which the Christian church will not readily 



PLACE IN THEOLOGICAL SEMINARIES. gg 

let die. At any rate, in New England was the 
shock of battle with Unitarianism, the controversy 
with Universalism, there the Baptists arose, there 
" New Divinity," and " New Theology " have at 
least made the religious activity of the people evi- 
dent, and given opportunity for a fresh and vigorous 
examination of every leading doctrine of Christianity. 
The " New England Theology " has the most inter- 
esting points of contact with the theology of Calvin 
as distinguished from the Calvinism of his successors. 
It roots in the past. But under the influence of a 
vastly more correct psychology than Calvin had, it 
contributes, as the writer believes, substantially to 
the solution of anthropological problems with which 
Luther and Melancthon, and Zwingli and Calvin, 
and the Arminians and Westminster wrestled in 
vain. Thus it affords a most important field for 
seminary work, and one, as the writer has found in 
his own classes, of intense interest to the average 
American theological student as he is. 

Thus there is at least one special field, largely 
unexplored but of great importance, which theologi- 
cal students can cultivate, and which without them 
will probably remain uncultivated. Every theologi- 
cal seminary has some division of it where it can 
work, and which will probably be entirely neglected, 
unless it itself takes hold. For example, Oberlin 
Seminary would naturally turn to the history of the 
" Plan of Union," as exemplified in the Western 
Reserve, to the effects of slavery on the American 
church, for which she has special advantages in her 
large anti-slavery collection, to the work of evangel- 



100 



THE SEMINARY METHOD. 



izing the great West. Andover would attend to 
many topics in Massachusetts history of great im- 
portance for the understanding of the history of the 
country at large, as for example, the rise of the vol- 
untary system. A good specimen of what can be 
accomplished in this direction is given in the paper 
of Mr. S. S. Green on " Voluntary Maintenance of 
Ministers in Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay Col- 
onies." 

The practical result of such efforts, outside of the 
immediate result of knowledge and discipline ac- 
quired, would undoubtedly be the preparation of a 
great number of papers on similar topics by stu- 
dents, and ministers settled in various parts of the 
country, which would be truly scientific pieces of 
work, available to the historian, instead of the in- 
ferior publications which we often find in our church 
and town histories, in which creditable zeal has often 
been defeated in its object by improper conceptions 
of the problem and lack of skill in digesting the 
materials. This is an object worth all the labor it 
will cost. 

Thus there might grow up gradually under the 
sympathetic hand of the professional student a 
scientific and reliable history of the church in 
America. The plan could be extended beyond any 
one denomination, and all principal seminaries 
could be gathered into one grand co-operative 
effort. Then there could be a national society for 
church history, where investigators from different 
seminaries might come together and compare the 
results of their labors, correct the one-sided views 



PLACE IN THEOLOGICAL SEMINARIES. IO l 

that any might have formed, and thus produce 
ultimately that clear and well rounded view of the 
actual state of things among us which would teach 
our special historical lesson to the world. 

The complete practicability of this calls upon the 
seminaries to engage in the work with a voice to 
which they will soon respond. 



VII. 

THE USES AND LIMITS OF THE METHOD IN 
COLLEGES. 

The theme has carried us hitherto into the uni- 
versity. It has, however, its application to the 
American college, since this properly includes 
within itself both the gymnasium of the German 
system, and a portion of the university, for the col- 
lege curriculum comprises both the " gymnastic " 
exercises which are intended to make the strong 
man, and those studies which are intended to in- 
form his mind. The German student enters the 
university ignorant of even the elements of philoso- 
phy or chemistry : the American graduate leaves 
college with a considerable degree of knowledge of 
them both, and of kindred topics. This distinction 
is now so fully recognized that in the Columbia 
" School of Political Science," — a professional, and 
so a university department, — students are admitted 
who have successfully pursued a course of study 
till the close of the junior year." It follows 
at once that if the college includes within itself a 
portion of the university, university methods are 
appropriate there just as they would be in the simi- 
lar portions of the university course pursued in what 
was formally styled a university. 

* "Circular of Information," p. 76. 
102 



USES OF THE METHOD IN COLLEGES. 



103 



Such work must of course be introduced with a 
due consideration of the circumstances of each case. 
Before truly original work is done, there must be a 
certain preparation for it. If the topic is the exter- 
nal history of any nation, there need not be much 
special preparation, since the general training of 
students in their studies, and their observation of the 
world in which they live, will furnish them the gen- 
eral ideas with which they must operate. But if 
the study be the history of philosophy, it is evident 
that there must be some acquaintance with the 
principles of philosophy, and with the history of 
philosophy as it is already known, before anything 
worth doing can be done. So in church history in 
a theological seminary. External church history 
may be studied at an early date, when the student 
is entirely unequal to the study of the history of 
doctrine. 

This general principle being laid down, and always 
kept clearly in mind, how shall the method of orig- 
inal study be introduced? In history, for example, 
shall time be taken up with a seminary, which has 
heretofore been devoted to gaining the first ac- 
quaintance with the outlines of the subject, and 
shall a student's grasp of a great period be thus 
sacrificed to original work over a very small topic? 

Now, in the first place, it is not necessary to 
sacrifice much of anything to gain this new training, 
for the study of a text book may be combined with 
the seminary method. Some ground may have to 
be sacrificed, and yet for the most part the students 
will work to so much greater advantage and learn 



t 04 THE SEMINAR Y ME THOD. 

what they have to learn so much more easily from 
the greater interest they will take in the subject, that 
the class will go over nearly the same ground, and 
do it much better. Or, if, on the other hand, the 
text book be entirely put aside, the topics, when 
well selected, will involve each so much collateral 
reading, and will require so much closer attention 
to details, that they will themselves prove a better 
introduction to any limited period, at least, than a 
text book can possibly be. 

An experiment of this kind was tried by Prof. 
Monroe of Oberlin College for the first time with a 
class in political economy in the fall of 1887. The 
work of the class-room in the text book went on as 
usual ; but a portion of the class volunteered to do 
some extra work after the seminary plan, and they 
were assigned topics with references carefully made 
out for each topic, and printed in a pamphlet.* 
The class worked through these subjects as thor- 
oughly as possible, having such suggestions as they 
needed from time to time, till the closing review 
came, when these were read as the daily class ex- 
ercise, while the review was left to each student to 
do for himself. 

Ordinarily, however, this style of work will come 
best by itself, and after the elementary work has 
been done by another class pursuing the common 
line of college study. We may listen at this point 
with advantage to the experience of Prof. Adams of 
Michigan University, now President of CornelLf 
He says : " Ever since my observation of the methods 

* See Appendix, p. 114 ff. \ At Circular," p. 104. 



USES OF THE METHOD IN COLLEGES. 



I05 



pursued in Europe, I have desired to introduce into 
the historical courses of the University of Michigan 
something akin to the historische Gesellschaft of 
the German universities. At the beginning of the 
past year [187-172] a favorable opportunity seemed 
to present itself. After consultation with the presi- 
dent of the university, and with the faculty of our 
department, I met the members of the senior class 
and explained the purpose of the experiment. It was 
found that twenty-seven members of the class de- 
sired to take an extended course of historical study, 
even in addition to the regular work of the senior 
year. After this expression the faculty decided to 
place this course in history among the elective 
studies. It was determined that the work of the 
semester should be devoted to the study of the 
growth of the British constitution. Twelve ques- 
tions, embracing topics of most importance from 
the period of the Saxons to the reform of 1832, 
were given to the class, together with numerous 
references to the best authorities in the university 
library. The class was divided into sections of 
from six to ten members each, in order that the 
work of each member might, as far as possible, be 
under the direction of the professor. Each section 
came together once a week for a session of two 
hours, when one of the members was required to 
read a carefully prepared essay on the question 
before him, and each of the other members was 
called upon to give the results 'of his own study of 
the same subject. In this manner, the class gained 
a good knowledge of the leading events in the 



! 6 THE SEMINAR Y ME THOD. 

growth of the English constitution and, what was 
perhaps of scarcely less importance, acquired a more 
or less intimate acquaintance with the best works 
that have been written on the civil and political 
history of the Anglo-Saxon race." 

Now this is not original work of the highest type, 
but it is very well worth doing, and it is the neces- 
sary preparation for the best kind of truly original 
work. Note what is gained by such a method. 
The class learn to study a subject in distinction 
from a book. They learn to collect information 
from many sources, to digest it and arrange it. 
They learn to criticise it and know the comparative 
value of different statements. The resulting know- 
ledge is theirs by right of creation from its materials, 
and not something which has been given them by 
another, simply. The only essential difference be- 
tween it and original work among the first sources 
of information, is that the material is given to the 
student in a form largely prepared, and he is not re- 
quired to extract the significance from mere hints, 
or from sources not originally designed to give such 
a product. It is therefore the best method for in- 
itiatory training, and will prepare the student to 
cope with the additional difficulties of higher work. 

Here properly the work of the seminary in a col- 
lege stops. All the time that can well be bestowed 
on such work will have been consumed when so 
much as this is done, and the further prosecution of 
the method should be left to the university course 
proper. 

Harvard College presents the phenomenon of an 



USES OF THE METHOD IN COLLEGES. iq-j 

institution which is in a course of development from 
a college into a proper university. It comprises, 
therefore, courses which no college standing upon 
the plane of the old American college can contem- 
plate or, in the writer's mind, ought to contemplate. 
Yet with due allowance for disparity of aims and 
purposes, its example will be instructive to other 
colleges. The last catalogue (1887-88) shows a very 
interesting development of the seminary system. 
Under the name of Seminary, or of Special advanced 
Study and Research, the plan is introduced in the 
study of the Semitic languages,* Latin,f Eng- 
lish, Psychology and Metaphysics, Political Econ- 
omy, History, % Roman Law, Mathematics, § and of 

*This is both a university and undergraduate seminary, though 
properly all the work done is of a university grade. Last year the 
following topics were discussed : Jewish Literature of the Nineteenth 
Century, Jewish Music, Modern Literary Activity in Syria, Transla- 
tions from the Rhymed Prose Satires of Hamadani, Materials for 
the Construction of Assyrian History, with references to recent 
books, Studies in Hebrew Literature, Isaiah and the Assyrian 
Monuments, A Study of the Book of Job, Hebrew Poetry, and The 
Druses of Mount Lebanon. See Catalogue for 1887-8, p. 122. 

t This course is entitled, " Philosophy among the Romans.— Selec- 
tions from Cicero and Lucretius." 

% There are four different courses under this head, embracing 
topics in Medieval and Church History, Constitutional Govern- 
ment, American History, and Modern Diplomacy. 

§ In the Mathematical Seminary lectures were given on The Dis- 
cussion of a Trigonometric Surface, The Geometry of Descartes, 
The Theory of Substitutions, The Discussion of a Riemann's Sur- 
face, The Curve of the Third Degree, The Theory of Capillarity, 
The Deflective Force of the Earth's Rotation, The Discussion of a 
Differential Equation, Some Equations in Theoretical Astronomy, 
Infinites and Infinitesimals, Some Theorems in the Theory of Num- 
ber, and The Curvature of Surfaces. 



1 08 THE SEMINAR Y ME THOD. 

course, the Natural Sciences. Not one of these 
seminaries existed fifteen years ago. It is at once 
evident how varied the possible range of such work 
is, and how it must and will spread in an institution 
when it has once been introduced. It meets a want 
which students have long felt, and which they de- 
mand shall be gratified when once they appreciate 
the fact that it is a reasonable and genuine require- 
ment of the mind. The method succeeds, and its 
success is the warrant for its existence. 



APPENDIX. 



APPENDIX. 

The following suggestions and lists of topics are 
designed to open the field of original study to those 
who are just making acquaintance with it. One of 
the clearest ways of gaining a knowledge of a new 
method is to find in what way others are managing 
it. No attempt at completeness is made, for the 
object is only suggestion. 

Johns Hopkins University. — List of papers pre- 
sented to the Historical and Political Science Associa- 
tion, 1877-79 (Circular above cited, p. 195 f.). 

The Village Communities of Ancient Germany and 
Mediaeval England. An Introduction to the Study of 
New England Towns and the Institutions of Local Self- 
government in America. 

Tramps. 

The Economy of Co-operation. 

Review of Dr. Woolsey's Theories concerning the Edu- 
cational Power of the State. 

Greek Cities. Fragments from Greek writers, illus- 
trating the historical village community, and the federal 
constitution of the commonwealth of Greece. 

The Tractatus Theologico-politicus of Spinoza. A 
philosophical essay in which Spinoza was presented as 
the champion of religious liberty. 

The Punitive Power of the State. An inquiry into the 
grounds of legal punishment and an examination of the 
views advanced in Woolsey's Political Science. 

Ill 



! 1 2 THE SEMINAR Y ME THOD. 

Bribes in Greece. 

Incidents of Historical Research in the Department of 
State at Washington. 

The Grand Jury System. 

The Ordinance of 1787 for the Government of the 
North-western Territory. 

The Original Conception of the Town as an Institution. 

The Influence of Alexander Hamilton in the formation 
of the Constitution of the United States. 

The Maryland State Papers. 

The Public School System. An inquiry as to its 
foundations. 

The School System of Connecticut, with Particular Ref- 
erence to that of New Haven. 

The School System of Baltimore. 

Are Boards of Arbitration desirable ? 

The Stone Age. 

The Swiss Lake Dwellings. 

The Depopulation of Central Greece in the Post-Clas- 
sical Period. 

The National Archives. 

A Study of German Social Democracy. 

A Review of the Question, " Was Maryland a Roman 
Catholic Colony?" 

Recent Complications in the School System of New 
Haven. 

Notes on Niebuhr's Life and Works. 

Lieber's Reminiscences of Niebuhr. 

Primitive Aryan Mythology from the Standpoint of In- 
dian Literature. 

Animistic Religion an Excrescence not a Germ of 
Vedic Religion. 

The Boundary Controversy between Maryland and 
Virginia. 



APPENDIX. l j 3 

Letter from Dr. Win. Hand Browne upon Catholic Tol- 
eration in Maryland. 

The First Public Proposal of a Constitutional Conven- 
tion for the United States. 

Methods of Historical Inquiry as pursued at German 
Universities. 

Maryland's Ratification of the Federal Constitution. 

The Position of Socialism in the Historical Develop- 
ment of Political Economy. 

Moral Insanity as a Cause of Crime. 

The Problem for Political Economy in the United 
States. 

Attic Colonization. 

Methods of Historical Instruction as pursued at Brown 
University. 

N. B. It will be evident upon a slight examination 
that the thread running through all this course was the 
study that was going on in the seminary on village com- 
munities. Mark the range of illustration sought of the 
principles of village organization ! 

Student Lectures. — An interesting method of in- 
struction in the undergraduate department of the uni- 
versity is that by means of student lectures. Generally 
these subjects are given out in connection with courses of 
instruction by the professors, and when the student is 
ready, he lectures to the class, in place of the professor. 
The following are selected topics out of several groups 
given in the " Circular," p. 201 ff. We give entire groups, 
as they are more significant than scattered topics would 
be. 

Church History. — Influence of Jewish Ceremonial 
upon the Christian Church ; Influence of Greek Philoso- 
phy on Christian Thought ; Influence of Roman Institu- 
tions upon the Church; the Apostolic Fathers ; the Greek 



H4 



THE SEMINARY METHOD. 



Apologists ; the Latin Apologists ; Saint Ambrose ; 
Chrysostom ; Saint Jerome and the Vulgate ; Saint Augus- 
tine and the City of God ; Nestorianism ; the Clergy and 
the Laity ; the Office of Patriarch ; Metropolitan Centers 
of Church Life ; Origin of the Papacy ; Artistic Repre- 
sentations of the Growth of the Ecclesiastical Constitu- 
tion ; Leo the Great; Extension of Church Authority 
into England; Conversion of Germany; Relation of 
Charles the Great to the Papacy ; Otto the Great ; In- 
ternational Position of the Holy Roman Empire of the 
German Nation ; Constitution of the Empire ; Territorial 
Claims of the Empire ; Gregory VII. and the Countess 
Mathilda of Tuscany ; the Normans in Sicily ; Frede- 
rick Barbarossa and his Relations with Italy ; Arnold of 
Brescia ; Points of Conflict between the Empire and the 
Papacy ; Fall of the Hohenstauffen Emperors ; the Great 
Councils of the Fifteenth Century. 

Mediaeval History. — Caesar's Conquest of Gaul; 
Life in Gaul in the fifth Century; Monastic Life in Mer- 
ovingian Gaul ; the Northmen ; Cnut and Harold Haar- 
drada ; Lanfranc and Anselm ; the Bayeux Tapestry ; 
Domesday; Results of the Crusades; Origin of Feudal- 
ism ; Mediaeval Cathedrals ; Scriptoria and Chronicles ; 
Conquest of Wales ; the Coming of the Friars into Eng- 
land; Law-Courts, circa 1200, in England; the Albi- 
genses and the Crusade against them ; Military and Re- 
ligious Orders; Montfort in Gascony ; London in the 
Fourteenth Century ; Robert Bruce ; Life on the Roads 
in England in the Fourteenth Century : the Popes at 
Avignon ; Froissart ; Wyclif's Bible ; the Paston Let- 
ters ; Parliamentary Antiquities in the Fourteenth and 
Fifteenth Centuries ; Comparison of the Characters of 
Louis XL, Henry VII., and Ferdinand of Aragon ; the 



APPENDIX. 



"5 



States General of 1468 and 1484; the Relations of France 
and Scotland in the Fifteenth Century. 

Politics. — England in Egypt ; the International As- 
sociation for the Control of African Trade and the River 
Congo ; France in the Tonquin ; the Opening of China ; 
Character of Chinese Diplomacy; the Opening and re- 
cent Progress of Japan ; Relations between Germany and 
the Vatican ; Papal Policy in America ; Who should con- 
trol the Panama Canal, if there were one ; International 
Congresses ; the Question of an International Tribu- 
nal ; the Diplomacy of the United States versus the 
Indians ; the Relation of Political Ethics to International 
Law ; the Theory of a World State ; Freedom of the Sea 
and of great Rivers ; the American Fisheries ; the Mon- 
roe Doctrine in its Relation to the South American Re- 
publics ; Review of the Present International Relations 
of the United States. 

The University " Studies." — These studies are so 
well known to the public through frequent advertisement, 
as well as through the great circulation which they have 
obtained, that a list of the contents of the nine or ten vol- 
umes of the series in both forms, need not be given here. 
But this may be said, <that they follow out the line of in- 
vestigation which has been suggested in the list of Asso- 
ciation topics already given. They are a long series of 
studies in the institutional history of America. They 
should be studied by every teacher who desires to know 
what he can undertake in this line in his own vicinity. 
Out of the multitudes of such studies which could be 
made in American affairs, if a larger number of schools 
would engage in it, there might come the most valuable 
as well as interesting results for the whole country. 



1 16 THE SEMINARY METHOD. 

Oberlin College. — The pamphlet printed by Prof. 
Monroe for his class in political economy began as fol- 
lows. We give but a portion of it. 

Senior Class — Oberlin College. 



Volunteer Club in Political Economy. 



September, 1887. 



Mr. 

Labor-Saving Machinery. 
Miss Martineau's " History of England," i. 334 and ii. 
54 ; Thompson's " Political Economy," see word " Ma- 
chinery " in Index ; Newcomb's " Political Economy," 
Book ii. Chap. vi. Section 38 ; Westminster Review, vol. 
14, pp. 191-210, also vol. 5, pp. 101-130; North Ameri- 
can Review, vol. 34, pp. 220-246 ; U. S. Commissioner of 
Labor, First " Annual Report," pp. 80-90 ; Young's 
" Report on Labor," (44th Cong. First Session, House Ex. 
Doc. 21.) pp. 176-195; Jevons' "State in Relation to 
Labor," Chapters ii. and iii. 



Mr. 

The National Banking System. 
Newcomb's " Political Economy," Book ii. Chap. xiii. 
Sections 87-90 inclusive ; Bowen's " American Political 
Economy," Chap. xvi. ; George Walker's Article in Bank- 
er's Magazine, March, 1868, on "The Advantages of the 



APPENDIX. ny 

National Banking System " ; Pamphlet containing the 
various acts in regard to the National Banks and published 
by the Comptroller of the Currency ; Lalor's Cyclopaedia, 
vol. i. p. 215, Article, "National Banking." 



Mr. 

Bimetallism. 

In favor of the Double Standard. 

Jevons' " Money and the Mechanism of Exchange," 
Chap. xii. ; Seyd's " Bullion and Foreign Exchanges," 
Part iii. Chap. iv. ; Francis A. Walker's " Money," Part i. 
Chapters xii. and xiii. ; Horton's " Silver and Gold," all 
parts of the work, but especially Chap, iii.; Monroe's 
speech in Congress, Feb. 21, 1878; M. Cernuschi's "Or 
et Argent " ; M. Wolowski's " L' Or et L' Argent " ; Fran- 
cis A. Walker's "Political Economy," Part vi. Chap. ix. 

/ft favor of the Single Standard. 

Mill's " Political Economy," Book iii. Chap. x. ; argu- 
ments in the report of the " Silver Commission," and in 
the reports of the " International Monetary Congress " of 
1878; Prof. Sumner's writings on that subject; Lalor's 
Cyclopaedia, Article, " Paris Monetary Conference." 



Mr. 

Specie Resumption in England. 
Sumner's " History of American Currency," Chap. ii. 
page 229 ; Horton's "Gold and Silver," Chap. vii. ; Miss 
Martineau's " History of England," VoL i. Book i. Chap, 
i., Book ii. Chap, iii., and Vol. ii. Book i. Chap. xv. 



j j g THE SEMINAR Y ME THOD. 



Mr. 

The Greenback. 
Sumner's " History of American Currency," page 197 ; 
Francis A. Walker's "Money," pp. 3 6 9~375 5 Upton's 
"Money in Politics," Chapters 12, 13, 14, 16, 17, and 18; 
Reports of Secretary of the Treasury and Comptroller of 
the Currency for the years 1863-1868, and 1874-1879 ; 
Lalor's Cyclopaedia, Article, " United States Notes," last 
part of the Article. 

Mr. 

The Principles of Taxation. 
Adam Smith's " Wealth of Nations," Book v. Chap. ii. ; 
Ricardo's " Principles of Political Economy and Taxa- 
tion," Chapters vii. to xvii. inclusive ; Mill's " Political 
Economy," Book v. Chap, ii., and also Chapters iii., iv., 
and v. ; Prof. Bowen's " Atnerican Political Economy," 
Chap, xviii. ; Newcomb's " Political Economy," Book v. 
Chap. iii. ; Francis A. Walker's " Political Economy," Part 
vi. Chap. xii. ; Amasa W T alker's " Political Economy," 
Book iv. Chapters ix. to xii. inclusive ; Perry's " Political 
Economy," Chap. xvi. ; Thompson's " Political Economy," 
Chap. ix. ; Greeley's " Political Economy," Chap. xix. ; 
Henry George's " Progress and Poverty," pp. 367-386 
and 387-424. 

Mr. 

Protection and Free Trade. 

In favor of Protection. 

Mill's "Political Economy," Book v. Chap. x. Sec. 1. ; 
Roscher's " Political Economy," Book v. Appendix iii. ; 



APPENDIX. i i g 

Henry C. Carey's " Social Science," in many places ; Eld- 
er's " Questions of the Day," Chapters xiv., xv., and xvi. ; 
Bowen's " Political Economy," Chap. xx. ; Thompson's 
"Political Economy," Chapters xi. and xii., and see also 
the word " Protection " in the Index ; Horace Greeley's 
"Political Economy" in all parts; Senator Sherman's 
Speeches, pp. i, 121, and 336 ; Judge Kelley's Speeches, 
consult Table of Contents ; Adam Smith's " Wealth of 
Nations," see certain concessions, Book iv. Chapters ii. 
and iii. ; Smith's " Political Economy," Chap. vii. 

In Favor of Free Trade. 

Mill's " Political Economy," Book v. Chap. x. Sec. 1 ; 
Adam Smith's " Wealth of Nations," Book iv. Chapters 
ii. and iii. ; Cairnes' " Political Economy," Part iii. Chap, 
iv. ; Sumner's " History of Protection in the United 
States " ; Perry's " Political Economy," Chapters on " For- 
eign Trade ' ; and " American Tariffs " : Grosvenor's " Does 
Protection Protect," throughout the book ; Bastiat's 
u Sophisms of Protection " ; Prof. Fawcett's " Free Trade 
and Protection " ; Newcomb's " Political Economy," Book 
v. Chap. ii. ; Francis A. Walker's " Political Economy," 
Part. vi. Chap. xiii. ; Amasa Walker's " Political Econ- 
omy," Book iii. Chapters iii., iv., and v. 



Mr. 

American Grain in Europe. 

See Index to Consular Reports, College Library. 

Topics for a Seminary for Church History. — 
In connection with suggestions already made in the 
body of this book, the writer will add a few complete 
lists of seminary topics in church history. A theologi- 
cal school of any denomination may easily find in its own 



! 20 THE SEMINAR Y ME THOD. 

history similar collections of topics, the study of which 
will prove not only exceedingly profitable, but also in- 
tensely interesting. 

New England Theology (as actually taught in Ober- 
lin Seminary, in 1886). 

1. Doctrine of Conversion. 

2. The Nature of the Will. 

3. Original Sin. 

4. The Nature of the Atonement. 

5. The Necessity of the Atonement. 

6. The Trinity. 

7. The Prevention of Sin. 

8. Office of the Holy Spirit. 

9. System of Hopkins. 

10. System of Emmons. 

11. System of Finney. 

12. Election and Freedom. 

13. The Theory of Virtue. 

14. Eschatology. 

Topics in Augustine (as actually taught in Oberlin, 
Winter of 1888). 

1. Augustine's View of the Constitution of the Human 
Mind.* 

2. Doctrine of the Will as originally created. 

3. System of Pelagius. 

4. Freedom of the Will subsequent to the Fall. 

5. Bondage of the Will. 

6. Prevenient Grace. 

7. Original Sin, its Origin. 

* There might be added, as a connecting link between ancient 
and modern history of doctrine, a series of papers on the psychol- 
ogy of other church teachers, Zwingli, Luther, Melancthon, Calvin, 
and of others like Socinus, — a subject which has never been prop- 
erly wrought out. 



APPENDIX. I2I 

8. Original Sin, its Effects. 

9. Guilt of Sin. 

10. Predestination. 

11. Perseverance. 

12. Faith and Justification. 

13. Baptism. 

14. Relation of the Church to Grace. 

15. Trinity. 

16. Schism. 

17. Relation of Augustine to Tertullian. 

18. A group of topics : 

a. Martin Luther's Form of Augustinianism. 

B. Calvin's Form of Augustinianism. 

c. The Augustinianism of Wiclif and Huss. 

Practice Topics for introducing the student to this 
form of study. 

1. The Council of Nice. — The chapters of Stanley's 
History of the Eastern Church relating to this Council 
could be used as a guide-book, a class carried over the 
discussion of the original documents, as preserved in 
Eusebius, Theodoret, Socrates, etc., and then an essay 
required from each student which should cover the 
ground, and yet make no statement for which the student 
had not himself seen the original authority. 

2. Hippolytus and his Conflict with the Bishops 
of Rome. — The material is accessible in English transla- 
tions, which will expedite matters. The topic may serve 
as an introduction to a later study of the growth of the 
Papal power. 

3. Original Topics.— These, when not too difficult, 
may be preferred for introductory work. The following 
series of inquiries as to the effects of slavery on the 
American churches, would serve the purpose. It relates 
to the effect of slavery on the Congregational churches, 



! 2 2 THE SEMINAR Y ME THOD. 

but, mutatis mutandis, similar lists could be prepared for 
every other denomination. 

i. Samuel Hopkins's Efforts for the Slave at Newport. 

2. Slavery in New England. 

3. Negro Members of Congregational Churches. 

4. Extension of Congregationalism in the Slave States. 

5. The Attitude of Anti-slavery Reformers towards 
the Church. 

6. Effect of Oberlin's Anti-slavery Position on its Use- 
fulness in the Western Reserve. 

7. Influence of Slavery in effecting the Disruption of 
the Presbyterian Church. 

8. Refusal of Oberlin Students by the American Board, 
and the General Position of this Organization on Slavery. 

9. Oberlin's Independent Missionary Efforts, and their 
Effects. 

10. The A.H.M.S. and Slavery. 

11. The early Congregational Churches in Kansas. 

12. Relative Attitude towards Slavery of the Unitarian 
and Orthodox Churches of New England. 

13. The Religious Press and Slavery. 

Harvard University. — In addition to what has above 
been said as to Dr. Hart's course, we may add the list of 
topics employed in his Seminary for 1887-88. We give 
of these only the first eleven, giving the " larger " topic 
first, and then the " smaller," which it will be noted is 
generally a sub-topic under the larger. 

1. 1860-65. T ne Civil Government of the United 
States. Thesis on : The Outbreak of the War. 

2. 1861-65. The civil government of the Confederate 
States. 

3. 1865-77. Reconstruction. — History of the XV. 
Amendment. 



APPENDIX. j 23 

4. 1865-85. Political Parties. 

5. 1865-85. Foreign Relations. — Bibliography of Amer- 
ican Diplomacy. 

6. 1865-85. Social Questions. 

7. 1865-85. Questions of State and Local Govern- 
ment. — Government of the Town of West Medford. 

8. 1865-85. Workings of the Legislative Department. 
— River and Harbor Legislation. 

9. 1865-85. Workings of the Executive Department. 
— History of the Veto Power. 

10. 1865-85. Workings of the Judiciary Department. — 
History of the XIV. Amendment. 

n. Special Bibliographical Work : Mr. -, 

when called upon. 

The Seminary in the Modern Languages. — The 
following extract from a paper read before the meeting 
of the Modern Language Association of America at its 
meeting at Philadelphia, Dec. 29, 1887, by Prof. H. S. 
White, of Cornell University, on The Teaching of a Foreign 
Literature in connection with the Seminary Method, will 
be found full of suggestion. 

" The old German Messiads, the Heliand and Otfrid's 
Krist, when compared together, show many interesting 
points of contrast. One may note the differing treatment 
of the Gospel narrative, and the difference in metrical 
structure, representing on the one hand the strong and 
simple alliterative beat of heathen versification, and on 
the other the influence of the gathering force of the Latin 
strophe of the Christian hymn, concealing within itself the 
melodious possibilities of assonance and alliteration with 
the more perfect melody of finished rime. Looking at 
the circumstances of the composition of the two poems, 
there is considered to be in one an eloquent proof of the 
growth of Christianity among the unlettered peoples of the 



1 24 THE SEMI N A R Y ME THOD. 

Saxon North ; in the other, an attempt to resist in the 
South the influence of a frivolous and pagan literature. 

" The poems of Walther von der Vogelweide, when 
studied in connection with his age, throw interesting side 
lights upon the social life of his time, and upon the con- 
tentions between emperor and pope. Martin Luther's 
writings are scarcely intelligible without an examination 
of middle high German, and in turn assist to an accurate 
analysis of modern German syntax. To describe the 
origin of the French or German drama, one must review 
ecclesiastical literature, and be familiar with the theater 
of the ancients. The benefit is evident of such courses as 
Prof. Crane's lectures at Cornell on French Society in the 
Seventeenth Century, based upon voluminous memoirs, 
correspondence, and other literary memorials of that 
period; or the courses of Professor Elliott at Johns Hop- 
kins, in which the work of the year may be concentrated 
on a limited period in literary history, or upon the study 
of a small group of related dialects, or of a few important 
linguistic monuments. What useful material, for a knowl- 
edge of the current impressions in Paris regarding Euro- 
pean art and politics is afforded by Heine's miscellaneous 
communications to the Augsburg Gazette ! What a field, 
too little cultivated, is afforded by the bulky correspond- 
ence of prominent literary characters ! Again, not the 
least beneficial phase of the minute study of the second 
part of Faust is afforded by the social and philosophical 
problems suggested, and by the discussion of the relations 
between the classic and romantic movements as depicted 
in the " Helena." Not less attractive is the effort to 
fathom the secret of the many erratic manifestations of 
genius of which every literature yields attractive and baf- 
fling illustrations. 

" A legitimate feature of such seminary work may be 



APPENDIX. l2 c 

the examination by students of new and relevant publica- 
tions, whether edition or commentary or special treatise, 
and the presentation of critical notices of their contents. 
Others desire to discard all adventitious aids, and, leaving 
unconsidered whatever incrustations have clustered upon 
the shell, to penetrate to the heart, and to devote the 
energies of their students to the patient study of the bare 
untarnished text, the naked thought of the author selected. 
Such diversities of operations may yet lead to equally 
profitable results. 

" As to the relation of the study of literature proper to 
the study of kindred subjects, one may say that although 
the teaching of literature be not the teaching of history or 
of biography, both are essential as a background ; and 
that inasmuch as the province of what is called Cultur- 
geschichte, — a sort of literary biology, — trenches upon lit- 
erary history, it is also to be considered a necessary con- 
comitant of literary studies." 



INDEX. 



Adams, Mr. C. F. 69, 73, 74. 

Adams, Prest. C. K. 104. 

Adams, Prof. H. B. 93. 

"Alabama," 69. 

Andover, 100. 

Arianism, 12. 

Arius, 45. 

Arminians, 37, 42. 

Articles, Marburg, 63. Zwingli's 

notes on, 63. 
Atonement, sub-topics under, 38. 
Augustine, 12, 45, 79 ff. Topics 

in, 120. 
Authorities, how to test them, 40. 

Banking, national system, litera- 
ture, 116. 
Bimetallism, literature, 117. 
Blockade, 73. 



Calvin, his psychology, 34.. Re- 
lations to Zwingli, 37/ Theory 
of Original Sin, 42. 

Calvinism, 99. 

Catalogue, library, use of, 34, 54. 

Church, American, problem of, 
89. 

Church history, departments, 11. 
Seminary, 12, 19. Books on, 

14. Use of general treatises, 

15. Study of American, 89. 
How jnade, 100. National So- 



ciety for, 100. Topics in, 
113, 119. 

Colleges, 102. 

Columbia School of Political Sci- 
ence, 102. 

Comprehension, church, 97. 

Confederacy, 67, ff. 

Constitution, 5. 

Context, study of, 8^. 

Contraband of War, y^. 

Council of Nice, 121. 

Causes, historical, 8. Of a doc- 
trine, 51, 64. 

Cyclopaedia, Annual, 67. 

Declaration of Independence, 5. 

Decretals, Isidorian, 35, 

Descartes, 12. 

Details, how avoid being swamped 
in, 56, 58, 60, 70. 

Diplomatic relations of United 
States and Great Britain, 66. 
Of France and England, 72. 
Correspondence, 71. Where 
found, 72. Southern corres- 
pondence, 69, 72. 

Doctrine, history of, 35, 96, 98. 
" Reformed " 96. 

Dort, Synod of, 16. 

Exequatur, 76. 

Education, ministerial, ideal of, 
85. Defects in, 87. 



127 



128 



THE SEMINARY METHOD. 



Finish, 43. 

Free Trade, literature, 119. 

Greenback, literature, 118. 
Guide-books, 32, 6y, 80. Use of, 
53. Are to be exhausted, 70. 

Hart, Dr. A. B., seminary meth- 
ods, 20, 122. 

Harvard University, seminaries 
in, 106. Topics, 122. 

Hebrew, study of, 86. 

Hippolytus, 121. 

Historical laws, 41. 

Historical sciences defined, I. 

History defined, 7. Prophetic 
office of, 9. Importance of 
study of, 4, 89. American 
church, 90. Topics in mediae- 
val, 114. 



Indexes, use of, 54, 55, 58, 80, 81. 
International Law, 73. 
Irrelevant investigations, 42. 



Johns Hopkins University, 19,93, 

in. Lists of topics, in ff. 
" Judicious skipping " 43, 55. 



Labor-saving machinery, litera- 
ture, 116. 

Languages, study of, 24. Read- 
ing, 25, 26. Seminary for mod- 
ern, 123. 

Leipsic, battle of, 10. 

Leipsic University, seminary, 21. 

Literature, study of, 49, 124. 

Luther 36, 47, 51, 57. Psychol- 
ogy of, 36. 



Lutheranism, steps in the devel- 
opment of, 51, 64. 



Magazines, how used as sources, 

78. 
Marburg Colloquy, 52 ff. 
Mason and Slidell, 67 ff. 
Materials, how to master them, 

56, 58, 60, 70. 
Melancthon, 36, 47, 51, 63. 
Means of grace, 65. 
Ministry, ideal of, 86. 



Negative results, 41. 

New England Theology. 20, 99. 

Topics in, 120. 
Nicolas I. as a witness, 46. 
Notes, how taken, 37, 67, 71, 82. 

Forms of, 54, 81, 82. 



Oberlin, topics in the seminary at, 
99. Prof. Munroe's class, 104. 
Pamphlet of topics, 116. 
Orientation, 32. 

Original study specially impor- 
tant to Americans, 4. 



Philosophy, history of, 12, 35. 
" Plan of Union," 9, 97. 
Political Economy, topics in, I 
Politics, topics in, 115. 
Practice topics, 121. 
Prejudice, theological, 41. 
Preparation of students, 22. 
Privateering, y^' 
Protection, literature, 118. 



Queries, 37. 



16. 



INDEX. 



129 



Reading languages, how to learn, 

26. 
Register, Annual, 73. 
Resumption, Specie, literature, 

117. 



Seminary, origin of, 17. Defini- 
tion, 18. Apartments, 18. Li- 
brary, 19. Methods, 20. Sys- 
tem of, 50. Place in a theologi- 
cal seminary, 85. Adjustment 
of to the theological curricu- 
lum, 88, 91. Range, 92. Top- 
ics, 94. American history in, 
96. In colleges, 102. 

Seminary method, the application 
of inductive logic, 2. Scope, 2, 
3. Use in languages, 2, 123. 
In colleges, 103, 105. 

Slavery, 98. Topics on, 121. 

Socinianism, 32. 

Sources defined, 16. Principal 
and minor, 57, 59, 68. How 
opened, 54, 57, 61, 62, 80. How 
to be read, 62. How to be 
quoted, 70. 

9 



Stanley on studying an event, 39. 
Student lectures, 113. 



Taxation, principles of, literature, 
118. 

Thesis, form of, 50. 

" Trent " affair, 67, 76, 78. Litera- 
ture, 78. 

Tribune, New York, 75, 77. 
Editorials bearing on public 
decisions in, 77. 



University of Michigan, 104. 
Voluntary system, 100. 



White, Prof. H. S. 123. 
Witnesses, trustworthiness of, 44. 
Cross-examination of, 46. 



Zwingli, 47, 54. 



MENTAL AND MORAL SCIENCE. 



AN OUTLINE STUDY OF MAN; or, the Body and Mind in One 
System. With illustrative diagrams. Revised edition. By 
MARK HOPKINS, D.D., LL.D., late President of Williams 
College. 12mo, S1.75. 

This is a model of the developing method as applied to intellectual 
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The work has come into very general use in this country as a man- 
ual for instruction, and the demand for it is increasing every year. 

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glad of the opportunity to express my high appreciation of Dr. Hopkins' Outline 
Study of Man. It has done more for me personally than any boot besides the 
Bible. More than any other it teaches the greatest of lessons, Know thyself. For 
over ten years, I have made it a text boot in the Senior Class of this school. 16 
is, I think, the greatest and most useful of the books of the greatest of our Am- 
erican educators, Kev. Dr. Hopkins, and is destined to do a great work In forming 
not only the ideas but the character of youth in America and in other parts of the 
world." 

PROF. ADDISON BALLARD, of Lafayette College.— "I have for years used 
Dr. Hopkins' Outline Study of Man, in connection with his Law of Love, as a text 
book for our Senior Classes. I have done this with unfailing success and with 
increasing satisfaction. It is of incalculable advantage to the student to come 
under the influence, through his books, of this great master of thought and of style. 
I cannot speak of Outline Study in terms of too hearty commendation." 

THE LAW OF LOVE, AND LOVE AS A LAW; >> v Christian 
Ethics. By MARK HOPKINS, D.D., LL.D., late President 
of Williams College. 12mo, $1.75. 

This work is designed to follow the author's Outline Study of Man, 
As its title indicates it is entirely an exposition of the cardinal precept 
of Christian philosophy in harmony with nature and on the basis of 
reason. Like the treatise on mental philosophy it is adapted with 
unusual skill to educational uses. 

It appears in a new edition, which has been in part re-written in 
order to bring it into closer relation to his Outline Study of Man, of 
which work it is really a continuation. More prominence has been 
given to the idea of Bights, but the fundamental doctrines of the 
treatise have not been changed. 



CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS* 



PSYCHOLOGY. By JAMES McCOSH, D.D., LL.D., President 
of Princeton College. I.— The Cognitive Powers. II.— The 
Motive Powers. 2 vols., 12mo. Sold separately. Each, 
$1.50. 

The first volume contains an analysis of the operations of the senses, 
and of their relation to the intellectual processes, with a discussion 
of sense perception, from the physiological side, accompanied by ap- 
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or Representative Powers, including such subjects as the association 
of ideas, the power of composition, etc. , concluding with a discussion 
of the Comparative Powers. The second volume treats of the Motive 
Powers, as they are called, the Orective, the Appetent, the Impulsive 
Powers ; including the Conscience, Emotions, and Will. 

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written in a clear and simple style ; it breathes a sweet and winning spirit ; and 
it is inspired by a noble purpose. In these respects it is a model of what a text 
book should be." 

S. L. CALDWELL, late President of Vassar College.— " I have read the book 
with much interest. It is what was to have been expected from the ability and 
long experience of the author. The style is clear and simple ; the matter is -well 
distributed ; it well covers the ground usually taught in such text books, and I 
am sure any teacher would find it a helpful guide in his classes." 

ELEMENTS OF PHYSIOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGY. By 
GEORGE T. LADD, D.D., Professor of Mental and Moral 
Philosophy in Yale University. With numerous illustrations^ 
8vo, $4.50. 

Professor Ladd's "Physiological Psychology" is the first treatise 
that has attempted to present to English readers a discussion of the 
whole subject brought down to the most recent times. It includes the 
latest discoveries, and by numerous and excellent illustrations and 
tables, brings before the reader in a compact and yet lucid form the 
entire subject. 

The work has three principal divisions, of which, the first consists 
of a description of the structure and functions of the Nervous System 
considered simply as a mechanism. The second part describes the 
various classes of correlations which exist between the phenomena of 
the nervous mechanism and mental phenomena, with the laws of these 
various classes. The third part presents such conclusions as may be 
legitimately gathered or inferred concerpi^gr the nature of the human 
mind. 

PROF. WILLIAM JAMES in T7ie Nation. — Jis erudition, and his broad- 
irJndedness are on a par with each other ; and his volume will probably for many 
years to come be the standard work of reference on the subject." 

THE SCKOOL JOURNAL.— "It is impossible in a brief notice to give any 
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HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY. 



HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY. By Prof. FRIEDRICH UEBER- 
WEG. Translated by Prof. G. S. Morris, of Michigan Uni- 
versity. Edited by Noah Porter, D.D., LL.D., late President 
of Yale College, and Philip Schaff, D.D. Vol. I.— Ancient 
and Mediaeval; Vol. il.-Modern. 2 vols., 8vo, S5.00. 

In its universal scope, and its full and exhaustive literature of the 
subject, Ueberweg's "History of Philosophy" has no equal. The 
characteristic features of the work are the compendious presentation 
of doctrines, the survey of the literature relating to each philosophical 
system, biographical notices, the discussion of controverted historical 
points, and compressed criticisms of doctrines from the standpoint of 
modern science and sound logic. 

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and suggestive, comprehensive and critical. Ii contains a complete presentation 
of the different philosophical schools, and describes, with sufficient minuteness, 
the principal doctrines which belong to each system, ana to subordinate branches 
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complete and reliable apparatus for the study of philosophy which has ever been 
placed in the hands of American students." 

REALISTIC PHILOSOPHY. Defended in a Philosophic Series. 
By JAMES McCOSH, D.D., LL.D., President of Princeton 
College. VoL 1.— Expository; Vol. 2.— Historical and Critical. 
2 vols., 12mo, S3.00. 

In the first volume the principal philosophic questions of the day 
are discussed, including the Tests of Truth, Causation, Development, 
and the Character of our World. In the second volume the same ques- 
tions are treated historically. The systems of the philosophers who 
have discussed them are stated and examined, and the truth and error 
in each of them carefully pointed out. 

THE N. Y. OBSERVER.— "Its style i3 so clear and direct, its presentation of the 
whole subject is so natural and forcible, that many persons who habitually ignore 
discussions of abstract topics, would be charmed into a new intellectual interest 
by giving Dr. McCosh's work a careful consideration." 

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are designed for exposition and defence of fundamental truths. The distinct but 
correlated subjects are treated with equal simplicity and power, and cover in 
brief much of the ground occupied by larger putlications, together with much on 
^dependent lines of thought that he outside their plan." 



CHARLES SCRIBNEKS SONS 



MODERN PHILOSOPHY. From Descartes to Schopenhauer and 
Hartmann. By Prof. FRANCIS BOWEN, of Harvard Univer- 
sity. 8vo, $3.00. 

The purpose of this book has been to furnish, within moderate 
compass, a comprehensive and intelligible account of the metaphysical 
systems of the great men who have been the leaders of European 
thought on philosophical subjects for nearly three centuries. Special 
treatises, such as Kant's ' ' Critique " and Hartmann's ' ' Philosophy 
of the Unconscious," are made the subjects of elaborate commentary, 
and expounded in all their leading features, with great care and 
minuteness. 

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DESCARTES AND HIS SCHOOL. By KUNO FISCHER. Trans- 
lated from the Third and Revised German Edition, by J. P, 
Gordy, Ph.D., Professor of Pedagogics in Ohio University. 
Edited by Noah Porter, D.D., LL.D. 8vo, $3.50. 
Kuno Fischer has the rare art of combining French lucidity of 
exposition with German thoroughness and profundity. 

His volume on Descartes is divided into four parts : a general in- 
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GERMAN PSYCHOLOGY OF TO-DAY. The Empirical School, 
byTh. RIBOT, Director of the Revue Philosophique. Trans- 
lated from the Second French Edition, by Jas. IYI. Baldwini 
B.A., Fellow Princeton College. With a Preface by James 
McC»sh, DD„ LL.D. Crown 8vo, 02.00. 
The object of this book is to give an account of the valuable re- 
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with the researches of Lotze, Miiller, Weber, Helmholtz, Wundt, 
Fechner, and minor scientists. 

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versities, this version offers for the first time to English readers a conspectus of 
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this volume will be found discussed with admirable classification the discoveries, 
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STANDARD TEXT BOOKS. 



FINAL CAUSES. By PAUL JANET, Member of the French 
Academy. With a Preface by Robert Flint, D.D., LL.D. 
From second French edition. Svo, 82.50. 

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gard Janet's * Final Canses ' as incomparably tne best thing in literature on the 
subject of -which it treats, and that it ought to be in the hands of every man who 
has any interest in the present phases of the theistic problem. I have recom- 
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structions." 

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that you have published Janet's 'Final Causes 'in an improved form and at a 
price which brings it within the reach of many who desire to possess it. It is, in 
my opinion, the most suggestive treatise on this important topic which is access- 
ible in our language." 

THE HUMAN INTELLECT. By NOAH PORTER, D.D.. LL.D., 

late President of Yale College. With an Introduction upon 
Psychology and the Human Soul. 8vo, $5.00. 

The author has not only designed ta furnish a text book which shall 
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ELEMENTS OF INTELLECTUAL SCIENCE. A Manual for 
Schools and Colleges. By NOAH PORTER, D.D., LL.D., 
late President of Yale College. 8vo, $3.00. 

This is an abridgment of the author's " Human Intellect," contain- 
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ments being terse and perspicuous." 

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iclence, from the author's point of view, with clearness and vigor." 



CHARLES SCBIBNERS SONS* 



ELEMENTS OF MORAL SCIENCE, Theoretical and Practical. 
By NOAH PORTER, D.D., LL.D., late President of Yale 
College. 8vo, S3.00. 

This treatise is intended primarily for the use of college and uni- 
versity students, and is prepared with reference to the class-room. It 
is in two parts : the first treats with great fullness l4 The Theory of 
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powers and the nature of the moral relations. The second division, 
"The Practice of Duty or Ethics" takes up the different classes of 
duties with a view to the practical application of the principles of 
moral science to the questions arising in every department of human 
activity. In every respect President Porter's work is abreast of the 
time, and leaves no controverted point undefended. 

GEORGE S. MORRIS, Professor of Ethics, University of Michigan.—" I nave 
read the work with great interest, and parts of it with enthusiasm. It is a vast 
improvement on any of the current text hooks of ethics. It is tolerant and 
catholic in tone ; not superficially, but soundly, inductive in method and ten- 
dency, and rich in practical suggestion." 

E. G. ROBINSON, rresident Brown University.— "It has all the distinguish- 
ing marks of the author's work on ' The Human Intellect,' is full and comprehen- 
sive in its treatment, dealing largely with current discussions, and very naturally 
follows it as a text book for the class-room." 

JULIUS H. SEELYE, President Amherst College.— "It is copious and clear, 
with ample scholarship and remarkable insight, and I am sure that all teachers 
of Moral Science will find it a valuable aid in their instructions." 

OUTLINES OF MORAL SCIENCE. By ARCHIBALD ALEX- 
ANDER, D.D., LL.D. 12mo, S1.50. 

This book is elementary in its character, and is marked by great 
clearness and simplicity of style. It is intended to lay the foundations 
and elucidate the principles of the Philosophy of Morals. It is widely 
used in colleges and other institutions of learning, and is specially 
adapted for students whose age, or the time at whose disposal, doea 
not permit the use of the more extended and abstruse works on ethics. 

THE THEORY OF MORALS. By PAUL JANET, Member of the 
French Academy. Translated under the supervision of 
President Noah Porter. 8vo, $2.50. 

Prof. Janet in this book gives us not only a clear and concise exam- 
ination of the whole study of moral science, but he has introduced into 
the discussion many elements which have hitherto been too much 
neglected. The first principles of moral science and the fundamental 
idea of morals the author describes with much precision, and presents 
an interesting and systematic exposition of them. 

SCIENCE.—" The book has lucidity and is full of learning. It is hardly extrav- 
agant to say that so clear and picturesque a treatise, in the hands of an alert 
teacher, might save the study of ethiC3 from its almost inevitable fate of be^ng 
very dull." 



STANDARD TEXT BOOKS. 



THE THEORY OF PREACHING; or, Lectures on Homiletics. 
By Professor AUSTIN PHELPS. 8vo, $2.50. 

This work is the growth of more than thirty years' practical ex- 
perience in teaching. The writings of a master of style, of broad and 
catholic mind are always fascinating ; in the present case the wealth 
of appropriate and pointed illustration renders this doubly the case. 

THE NEW YORK CHRISTIAN ADVOCATE.— "Ministers of all denominations 
and of all degrees of experience will rejoice in it as a veritable mine of wisdom." 

THE INDEPENDENT.—" The volume is to be commended to young men as a 
superb example of the art in which it aims to instruct them." 

THE WATCHMAN.— "The reading of it is a mental tonic. The preacher 
cannot but feel often his heart burning within him under its influence. We could 
wish it might be in the hands of every theological student and of every pastor." 

MEN AND BOOKS; OR, STUDIES IN HOMILETICS. Lectures 
Introductory to the "Theory of Preaching." By Professor 
AUSTIN PHELPS, D.D. Crown 8vo, S2.00. 

Professor Phelps' second volume of lectures is devoted to a dis- 
cussion of the sources of culture and power in the profession of the 
pulpit, its power to absorb and appropriate to its own uses the world 
of real life in the present, and the world of the past, as it lives in 
books. 

PROFESSOR GEORGE P. FISHER.— "It is a live book, animated as well as 
sound and instructive, in which conventionalities are brushed aside, and the 
author goes straight to the marrow of the subject. No minister can read it 
without being waked up to a higher conception of the possibilities of his calling." 

BOSTON WATCHMAN.—" We are sure that no minister or candidate for the 
ministry can read it without profit. It is a tonic for one's mind to read a book so 
laden with thought and suggestion, and written in a style so fresh, strong, and 
bracing." 

A TREATISE ON HOMILETICS AND PASTORAL THEOLOGY. 
By W. Q. T. SHEDD, D.D. Crown 8vo, $2.50. 

In this work, treating of the main points of Homiletics and Pastoral 
Theology, the author handles his subject in a masterly manner, and 
displays much original and highly suggestive thought. The Homileti- 
cal part is especially valuable to ministers aud those in training for the 
ministry. Dr. Shedd's style is a model of purity, simplicity and 
strength. 

THE NEW YORK EVANGELIST.—" We cannot but regard it as, on the whole, 
the very best production of the kind with which we are acquainted. The topics 
discussed are of the first importance to every minister of Christ engaged in active 
service, and their discussion is conducted by earnestness as well as ability, and in 
a style which for clear, vigorous, and unexceptionable English, is itself a model." 

THE CHRISTIAN intelligencer.— "The ablest book on the subject whica 
the generation has produced.'' 



BIBLICAL STUDY 



BIBLICAL STUDY. Its Principles, Methods, and History. By 
CHARLES A. BRICCS, D.D., Professor of Hebrew and 
Cognate Languages in Union Theological Seminary. Crown 
8vo, $2.50. 

The author has aimed to present a guide to Biblical Study for the 
intelligent layman as well as the theological student and minister of 
the Gospel. At the same time a sketch of the entire history of each 
department of Biblical Study has been given, the stages of its develop- 
ment are traced, the normal is discriminated from the abnormal, and 
the whole is rooted in the methods of Christ and His Apostles. 

THE BOSTON ADVERTISER.— "The principles, methods, and history of 
Biblical study are very fully considered, and it is one of the best works of its kind 
in the language, if not the only book wherein the modern methods of the study 
of the Bible are entered into, apart from direct theological teaching." 

THE LONDON SPECTATOR.— "Dr. Brigg3' bookisoneof much value, not the 
less to be esteemed because of the moderate compass into which its mass of in- 
formation has been compressed." 

MESSIANIC PROPHECY. The Prediction of the Fulfilment of 
Redemption through the Messiah. A Critical Study of the 
Messianic Passages of the Old Testament in the Order of 
their Development. By CHARLES A. BRICGS, D.D., Pro- 
fessor of Hebrew and the Cognate Languages in the Union 
'.heological Seminary. Crown 8vo, S2.50. 
Li this work the author develops and traces "the prediction of 
the fulfilment of redemption through the Messiah" through the whole 
series of Messianic passages and prophecies in the Old Testament. 
Beginning with the first vague intimations of the great central thought 
of redemption he arrays one prophecy after another ; indicating clearly 
the general condition, mental and spiritual, out of which each prophecy 
arises ; noting the gradual widening, deepening, and clarification of 
the prophecy as it is developed from one prophet to another to the 
end of the Old Testament canon. 

THE LONDON ACADEMY.— "His new book on Messianic Prophecy is a 
wcrtny companion to his indispensable text-book on Biblical study. He has pro- 
duced the first English test-book on tne subject of Messianic Prophecy which a 
modern teacher can use." 

THE EVANGELIST.— ''Messianic Prophecy is a subject of no common inter- 
est, and this book is no ordinary book. It is, on the contrary, a work of the very 
first order ; the ripe product of years of study upon the highest themes. It is 
exegesis in a master-hand." 



CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES AND 
HOMILETICS. 



THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. By 
Prof. GEORGE P. FISHER, D.D., LL.D., Professor of 
Ecclesiastical History in Yale College. Crown 8vo, $2.50. 

FROM THE PREFACE.—" This volume embraces a discussion of the evidence*- 
of both natural and revealed religion. Prominence is given to topics having 
special interest at present from their connection with modern theories and diffi- 
culties. The argument of design, and the bearing of evolutionary doctrines 
on its validity, are fully considered. I have sought to direct the reader into lines 
of reflection which may serve to impress him with the truth contained in the 
remark that the strongest proof of Christianity is afforded by Christianity itself, 
and by Christendom as an existing fact. I venture to indulge the hope that they 
may derive from it some aid in clearing up perplexities, and some new light upon 
the nature of the Christian faith and its relation to the Scriptures." 

JULIUS H. SEELYE, President of Amherst College.— "I find, it as I should ex- 
pect it to be, wise and candid, and convincing to an honest mind. I congratulate 
you upon its publication, in which you seem to me to have rendered a high 
public service." 

PROF. JAMES O. MURRAY, of Princeton College.—" The volume meets here 
a great want, and meets it well. It is eminently fitted to meet the honest doubts 
of some of our best young men. Its fairness and candor, its learning and ability 
in argument, its thorough handling of modern objections— all these qualities fit it 
for such a service, and a great service it is." 

ESSAYS ON THE SUPERNATURAL ORIGIN OF CHRISTIAN- 
ITY. By Prof. GEORGE P. FISHER, D.D., LL.D., Professor 
of Ecclesiastical History in Yale College. 8vo, new and 
enlarged edition, S2.50. 

THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.— "Able and scholarly essays on the Super- 
natural Origin of Christianity, in which Prof. Fisher discusses such subjects as 
the genuineness of the Gospel of John, Baur's view of early Christian History and 
Literature, and the mythical theory of Strauss." 

THE NEW YORK TRIBUNE.— "His volume evinces rare versatility of intellect, 
with a scholarship no less sound and judicious in its tone and extensive in its 
attainments than it is modest in its pretensions." 

THE BRITISH quarterly REVIEW.— "We Know not where the student will 
find a more satisfactory guide in relation to the great questions which have grown 
up between the friends of the Christian revelation and the most able of its assail- 
ants, within the memory of the present generation." 



CHABLES SCBIBNEB'S SONS' 



THE PHILOSOPHIC BASIS OF THEISM. An Examination of the 
Personality of Man, to Ascertain his Capacity to Know and 
Serve God, and the Validity of the Principle Underlying tho 
Defense of Theism. By SAMUEL HARRIS, D.D., LL.D., Pro- 
fessor of Systematic Theology in Yale College. 8vo, 83.50. 

Dr. Harris embodies in his work the results of his long meditation 
on the highest themes, and his long discussion and presentation of 
these truths in the class-room. His fundamental positions are thor- 
oughly in harmony with soundest modern thought and most trust- 
worthy modem knowledge. 

THE INDEPENDENT.— "It is rare that a -work, which is of necessity, so 
severely metaphysical in both topics and treatment, is so enlivened by the 
varied contributions cf a widely cultivated mind from a liberal course of 
reading. His passionate and candid argument cannot fail to command the 
respect of any antagonist of the Atheistic or Agnostic schools, who will take 
the pains to read his criticisms or to review his argument. In respect to coolness 
and dignity and self-possession, his work is an excellent model for scientists, 
metaphysicians, and theologians of every complexion." 

THE HARTFORD COUR A NT.— "Professor Harris' horizon-lines are uncon- 
tracted. His survey of the entire realm he traverses is accurate, patient, and 
considerate. No objections are evaded. No conclusions are reached by saltatory 
movements. The utmost fairness and candor characterize his discussions. N o 
more thoroughly scientific work in plan or method or spirit has been done in our 
time. On almost every page one meets with evidences of a wide and reflec- 
tive reading, not only of philosophy, but cf poetry and fiction as well, which 
enriches and illumines the whole course of thought." 

THE SELF-REVELATION OF GOD. By SAMUEL HARRIS, 
D.D., LL.D., Professor of Systematic Theology in Yale Col- 
lege. 8vo, $3.50. 

In this volume Dr. Harris presents a statement of the evidence of 
*Jie existence of God, and of the reality of His revelation of Himself 
in the experience or consciousness of men, and the verification of the 
same by His further revelation of Himself in the constitution and 
ongoing of the universe, and in Christ. 

PROF. WM. G. T. SHEDD, D.D., in The Presoyterian Review.— " Such a 
work is not brought out in a day, but is the growth of years of professional study 
and reflection. Few books on apologetics have been recently produced that will 
be more influential and formative upon the mind of the theological or philosophi- 
cal student, or more useful. It is calculated to influence opinions, and to influence 
them truthfully, seriously, and strongly." 

BISHOP HURST, in The Northwestern Christian Advocate.— "We do net know 
a better work among recent publications tban this one for building up old hopes 
and giving a new strength to one's faith. The book is thoroughly evangelic, 
fresh, and well wrought out. It is a valuable contribution to our American 
theology." 



STANDARD TEXT BOOKS. 



POLITICAL ECONOMY. By ARTHUR LATHAM PERRY, Pro- 
fessor of History and Political Economy in Williams College. 
Crown 8vo, $2.50. 

Professor Perry's book has passed through many editions and has 
recently been subjected to a thorough revision and recasting. His 
work is a complete exposition of the Science of Political Economy both 
historically and topically, his style is admirably clear and racy ; his 
illustrations are forcible and well chosen, and he has made a subject 
interesting and open to the comprehension of any diligent student, 
which has often been left by writers vague and befogged and bewilder- 
ing. This work has stood excellently the test of the class room, and 
has been adopted by many of the chief educational institutions in this 
country. Among them are Yale College, Bowdoin College, Dartmouth, 
Trinity, Wesleyan, University of Wooster, Denison University, 
Rutgers College, New York University, Union College, and many other 
colleges and normal and high schools. 

T. D. WCOLSEY, President of Tale College.— "Your book interests students 
more than any I nave ever instructed from." 

THE NEW YORK TIMES.— "As a manual for general reading and popular 
instruction, Prof. Perry's book i3 far superior to any work en the subject before 
issued in tbe United States." 

THE NATION.— "We cordially recommend thi3 book to all, of -whatever school 
of political economy, who enjoy candid statement and full and logical discussion." 

THE INDEPENDENT.—" There is more common sense in tbisbook than in any 
of the more elaborate works on the same subject that have preceded it. It is the 
most interesting and valuable one that has been given to the American public on 
this important subject." 

INTRODUCTiON TO POLITICAL ECONOMY. By ARTHUR 
LATHAM PERRY, Professor of History and Political Econ* 
omy in Williams College. Revised edition. 12mo } $1.50. 

FROM THE PREFACE.— "I have endeavored in this book so to lay the founda- 
tions of Political Economy in their whole circuit, that they will never need to be 
disturbed afterwards by persons resorting to it for their early instruction, how- 
ever long and however far these persons may pursue their studies in this science." 

THE N. Y. EVENING POST.— "This work is not meant in any way to take 
the place of its author's larger treatise, but rather to occupy a field which, in the 
nature of the case, that work cannot occupy. It is net an abridgment of that 
work but a separate treatise, intended primarily for the use of students and 
readers whose time for study is small, but who wish to learn the broad principles 
of the science thoroughly and well, especially with reference to the scientific 
principles which are involved in the practical discussions of our time. * * * We 
need scarcely add, with respect to a writer so well known as he, that his thinking 
is sound as well as acute, or that his doctrines are those which the greatest 
masters of political science have approved.'' 



CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS' 



AMERICAN POLITICAL ECONOMY. By FRANCIS BOWEN, 
Professor of Natural Religion and Moral Philosophy in 
Harvard College. 8vo, $2.50. 

This treatise presents views compatible with the idea that • ' every 
country has a political economy of its own, suitable to its own physical 
circumstances of position on the globe, and to the character, habits, 
and institutions of the people." 

THE PHILADELPHIA AGE.— "If our members of Congress would vote them- 
selves a copy of this book, and read it, fewer wild schemes would be coneocted 
by them, and a great saving of time and the people's money would be secured." 

THE SPRINGFIELD REPUBLICAN.— "His arguments are worth considering, 
and his whole book is of high value to any American to study economical ques- 
tions." 



CONTEMPORARY SOCIALISM. By JOHN RAE, M.A. Crown 
8vo, S2.00. 

Such a book as this which Mr. Rae has written — a thorough history 
and analysis by a man of singularly candid and liberal mind, equally 
without prejudice and fanaticism — has long been needed and earnestly 
wished for by every student of socialism, and in all countries. 

THE LONDON SATURDAY REVIEW.-"A useful and ably written book." 

THE CONGREGATION ALIST.— "No subject more needs thorough and im- 
partial discussion at present than this, and the work before us by John Rae is em- 
inently able and helpful. It i3 distinguished in a remarkable degree by breadth of 
view and the grasp of underlying and widely reaching principles, and also by his 
minuteness of detail and the careful relation of facts and figures in support of its 
position." 

COMMUNISM AND SOCIALISM. In their History and Theory. 
A Sketch. By THEODORE D. WOOLSEY, D.D., LL.D., 
late President of Yale College. 12rno, $1.50. 

This book is the only comprehensive review of its subject, within 
small compass, yet exactly meeting the needs of the reader, that is ac- 
cessible in English. The candor of the discussion is remarkable ; the 
book is the argument of a perfectly fair reasoner, painting nothing in 
too dark colors, but taking his opponents at their best. 

THE N. Y. COMMERCIAL ADVERTISER.— "The work is an epitome of the 
history of the socialistic and communistic movement, and will prove a most valu- 
able text book to all who have not made themselves familiar with this great 
subject." 



STANDARD TEXT BOOKS. 



THE BEGINNINGS OF HISTORY. According to the Bible and 
the Traditions of the Oriental Peoples. From the Creation 
of Man to the Deluge, By FRANCOIS LENORMANT, Pro* 
fessor of Archaeology at the National Library of France, etc, 
(Translated from the Second French Edition). With an in- 
troduction by Francis Brown, Associate Professor in Biblical 
Philology, Union Theological Seminary. 12mo, $2.50. 

THE NEW ENGLANDER.— "Mr. Lenormant is not only a believer in reve- 
lation, but a devout confessor of what came by Moses ; as well as of what came 
by Cbrist. In this explanation of Chaldean, Babylonian, Assyrian and Pbenician 
tradition, be discloses a prodigality of thought and skill allied to great variety of 
pursuit, and diligent manipulation of what he has secured." 

THE NEW YORK TRIBUNE.— "The work is one that deserves to be studied 
by all students of ancient history, and in particular by ministers of the Gospel, 
whose office requires them to interpret the Scriptures, and who ought not to be 
ignorant of the latest and most interesting contribution of science to the elucida- 
tion of the sacred volume." 



QUOTATIONS IN THE NEW TESTAMENT. By C. H. TOY, 
D.D., Professor of Hebrew in Harvard University. 8vo, $3.50. 

THE CONGREGATION ALIST.— "Textual points are considered carefully, and 
ample and accurate indexes complete the work. The minute and patient 
thoroughness of his examination of passages and the clear and compact arrange* 
ment of his views render his book remarkable. The difficulties of his task were 
great and he has shown rare skill and has attained noteworthy success in meeting 
them." 

THE CHRISTIAN EVANGELIST.— "Prof. Toy's collection and comparison of 
the passages quoted in the New and Old Testament is a fine, scholarly piece of 
work. It surpasses anything that has been done by European scholarship in this 
field." 

THE CHALDEAN ACCOUNT OF GENESIS. By GEORGE 
SMITH, of the Department of Oriental Antiquities, British 
Museum. A New Edition, revised and corrected (with addi- 
tions), by A. H. Sayce. 8vo, $3.00. 

THE N. Y. GUARDIAN.— "It is impossible inlew words to give any adequate 
impression of the exceeding value of this work. This volume is sure to find its 
way into the public libraries of the country, and the important facts which it 
contains should be scattered everywhere among the people." 

THE CHRISTIAN INTELLIGENCER.— "The accomplished Assyriologist Prof. 
Sayce has gone over the whole with the advantage of a large number of additional 
texts, and has carefully brought the book up to the level of the present knowl- 
edge of the subject. The book as it stands is a very important verification of 
the early Hebrew records." 



POLITICAL SCIENCE AND 
ECONOMY. 



POLITICAL SCIENCE; Or, The State Theoretically and Practi- 
cally Considered. By THEODORE D. WOOLSEY, D.D., 
LL.D.i late President of Yale College. 2 vols., 8vo, $5.00. 

THE BOSTON TRANSCRIPT.— "No work <~;e Political Science has ever been 
published in America which covers so wide &■ ground and which treats the sub- 
ject so fairly and impartially, and with so thorough knowledge and judgment." 

THE CINCINNATI GAZETTE.— " This work is indeed one of the most im- 
portant contributions of the century to the science of natural and national law and 
ethics." 

THE N. Y. TRIBUNE.—" In the discussion of the macifold questions suggested 
by the general theme of the work Dr. Woolsey exhibits the same cautiousness of 
judgment, moderation of tone, and vigor of expression which characterize his 
previous writings. His volumes abound with the signs of profound study and 
copious erudition as well as of original thought." 



8NTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF INTERMATIONAL LAW. 

Designed as an Aid in Teaching and in Historical Studies. 
By THEODORE D. WOOLSEY, D.D., LL.D-, late President 
of Yale College. Fifth edition, revised and enlarged. Crown 
8vo, $2.50. 

A complete outline of that grand system of ethical jurisprudence 
which holds, as it were, in one community the nations of Christendom. 
Its appendix contains a most useful list of the principal treaties since 
the Reformation. The work has no rival as a text book. 

Special attention is directed to the fact that this FIFTH KDITT.ON of Dr. 
Woolsey's International Law is entirely re-written and enlarged, and is printed 
from new plates. 

THE ST. LOUIS REPUBLICAN.— "A compendium treatise, intended not for 
lawyers nor for those having the profession of law in view, but for young men who 
are cultivating themselves by the study of historical and political Science. While 
the work gives the state of the law of nations as it is, it compares the actual la*v 
with the standard of justice, and, by exhibiting the progress of science *n a 
historical way, brings it into connection with the advances of humanity ftad 
civilization." 



CHARLES SGRIBNEWS SONS' 



LECTURES ON THE HISTORY OF THE JEWISH CHURCH. By 
ARTHUR PENRHYN STANLEY, D.D. With Maps and Plans. 
New Edition from New Plates, with the author's latest revis- 
ion. Part I.— From Abraham to Samuel. Part II— From 
Samuel to the Captivity. Part III.— From the Captivity to 
the Christian Era. Three vols., 12mo (sold separately), each 
$2.00. 

The same— Westminster Edition. Three vols., 8vo (sold in sets 
only), per set, $9.00. 

LECTURES ON THE HISTORY OF THE EASTERN CHURCH. 

With an introduction on the Study of Ecclesiastical History. 
By ARTHUR PENRHYN STANLEY, D.D. New Edition from 
New Plates. 12mo, $2.00. 

LECTURES ON THE HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF SCOT- 
LAND. By ARTHUR PENRHYN STANLEY, D.D. 8vo, $1.50. 

In all that concerns the external characteristics of the scenes and 
persons described, Dr. Stanley is entirely at home. His books are not 
dry records of historic events, but animated pictures of historic scenes 
and of the actors in them, while the human motives and aspects of 
events are brought out in bold and full relief. 

THE LONDON CRITIC— "Earnest, eloquent, learned, with a style that Is 
never monotonous, but luring through its eloquence, the lectures will maintain 
his fame as author, scholar, and divine. We could point out many passages that 
glow with a true poetic fire, but there are hundreds pictorially rich and poetically 
true. The reader experiences no weariness, for in every page and paragraph 
there is something to engage the mind and refresh the soul." 

THE NEW ENGLANDER.—" We have first to express our admiration of the 
grace and graphic beauty of his style. The felicitous discrimination in the use 
of language which appears on every page is especially required on these topics, 
where the author's position might so easily be mistaken through an unguarded 
statement. Dr. Stanley is possessed of the prime quality of an historical student 
and writer— namely, the historical feeling, or sense, by which conditions of life 
and types of character, remote from our present experience, are vividly con- 
ceived of and truly appreciated." 

THE N. Y. TIMES.— "The Old Testament History is here presented as it 
never was presented before ; with so much clearness, elegance of style, and his- 
toric and literary illustration, not to speak of learning and calmness of judgment, 
that not theologians alone, but also cultivated readers generally, are drawn to ita 
pages. In point of style it takes rank with Macaulay's History and the best 
chapters of Froude." 



HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHY. 



THE DAWN OF HISTORY. An Introduction to Pre-Historic 
Study. Edited by C. F. KEARY. 12mo, $1.25. 

This work treats successively of the earliest traces of man in the 
remains discovered in caves or elsewhere in different parts of Europe ; 
of language, its growth, and the story it tells of the pre-historic users 
of it ; of the races of mankind, early social life, the religions, mythol- 
ogies, and folk-tales of mankind, and of the history of writing. 

NATION.— "The book may be heartily recommended as probably the most 
satisfactory summary of the subject that there is." 

BOSTON SAT. EVE. GAZETTE.— "A fascinating manual, without a vestige 
of the dullness usually charged against soientific works. In its way, the work is 
a model of what a popular scientific work should be." 

THE ORIGIN OF NATIONS. By Professor GEORGE RAWLIN- 
SON, M.A. 12mo, with maps, $1.00. 

The first part of this book, Early Civilizations, discusses the an- 
tiquity of civilization in Egypt and the other early nations of the East. 
The second part, Ethnic Affinities in the Ancient World, is an examin- 
ation of the ethnology of Genesis, showing its accordance with the 
latest results of modern ethnographical science. 

CONGREGATIONALIST.— "A work of genuine scholarly excellence, and a 
useful offset to a great deal of the superficial current literature on such subjects." 

MANUAL OF MYTHOLOGY. For the Use of Schools, Art Stu- 
dents, and General Readers. Founded on the Works of 
Petiscus, Preller, and Welcker. By ALEXANDER S. MUR- 
RAY, Department of Greek and Roman Antiquities, British 
Museum. With 45 Plates on tinted paper, representing 
more than 90 Mythological Subjects. Reprinted from the 
Second Revised London Edition. Crown 8vo, $1.75. 

THE CLEVELAND HERALD.— "It has been acknowledged the best work on 
the subject to be found in a concise form, and as it embodies the results of the 
latest researches and discoveries in ancient mythologies, it is superior for school 
and general purposes as a hand book to any of the so-called standard works." 

THE BOSTON JOURNAL.— "Whether as a manual for reference, a text book 
for school use, or for the general reader, the book will be found very valuable and 
interesting." 



CHURCH HISTORY. 



THE BEGINNINGS OF CHRISTIANITY. With a View of the 
State of the Roman World at the Birth of Christ. By 
GEORGE P. FISHER, D.D., L.L.D., Professor of Church 
History in Yale College. 8vo, $2.50, 

THE BOSTON ADVERTISER.— "Prof. Fisher has displayed in this, as inhia 
previous published writings, that catholicity and that calm judicial quality of 
mind which are so indispensable to a true historical critic." 

THE EXAMINER.— "The volume is not a dry repetition of well-known facts. 
It bears the marks of original research. Every page glows with freshness of 
material and choiceness of diction." 

THE EVANGELIST.— "The volume contains an amount of information that 
makes it one of the most useful of treatises for a student in philosophy and 
theology, and must secure for it a place in his library as a standard authority," 

HISTORY OF THE CHRSSTIAN CHURCH. By GEORGE P, 
FISHER, D.D., LL.D., Professor of Ecclesiastical History in 
Yale University. 8vo, with numerous maps, S3. 50, 

This work is in several respects notable. It gives an able presenta- 
tion of the subject in a single volume, thus supplying the need of a 
complete and at the same time condensed survey of Church History. 
It will also be found much broader and more comprehensive than other 
books of the kind. The following will indicate its aim and scope. 

FROM THE PREFACE.— "There are tvro particulars in which I have sought 
to make the narrative specially serviceable. In the first place the attempt has 
been made to exhibit fully the relations of the history of Christianity and of the 
Church to contemporaneous secular history. * * * I have tried to bring out 
more distinctly than i3 usually done the interaction of events and changes in the 
political sphere, with the phenomena which belong more strictly to the ecclesiasti- 
cal and religious province. In the second place it ha3 seemed to me possible to 
present a tolerably complete survey of the history of theological doctrine. * * » 

" It has appeared to me better to express frankly the conclusions to which my 
investigations have led me, on a variety of topics where differences of opinion 
exist, than to take refuge in ambiguity or silence. Something of the dispassionate 
temper of an onlooker may be expected to result from historical studies if long 
pursued ; nor is this an evil, if there is kept alive a warm sympathy with' the spirit 
of holiness and love, "wherever it is manifest. 

"As this book is designed not for technical students exclusively, but for intel- 
ligent readers generally, the temptation to enter into extended and minute diacua- 
Bions on perplexed or controverted topics has been resisted." 



STANDARD TEXT BOOKS. 



HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. By PHILIP SCHAFF, 
D.D. New Edition, re-written and enlarged. Vol. I.— Apos- 
tolic Christianity, A.D, 1—100. Vol. II.— Ante-Nicene Chris- 
tianity, A.D. 100-325. Vol. III.— Nicene and Post-Nicene 
Christianity, A.D. 311-600. Vol. IV.— Mediaeval Christianity, 
A.D. 590-1073. 8vo, price per vol., $4.00. 

This work is extremely comprehensive. All subjects that properly 
belong to a complete sketch are treated, including the history of Chris- 
tian art, hymnology, accounts of the lives and chief works of the 
Fathers of the Church, etc. The great theological, christological, and 
anthropological controversies of the period are duly sketched ; and in 
all the details of history the organizing hand of a master is distinctly 
Been, shaping the mass of materials into order and system. 

FROF. GEO. P. FISHER, of Yale College.—" Dr. Schaff has thoroughly and 
successfully accomplished his task. The volumes are replete with evidences of a 
careful study of the original sources and of an extraordinary and, we might say, 
unsurpassed acquaintance with the modern literature— German, French, and 
English— in the department of ecclesiastical history. They are equally marked by 
a fair-minded, conscientious spirit, as well as by a lucid, animated mode of 
presentation." 

PROF. ROSWELL D. HITCHCOCK, D.D.— "In no other single work of 
its kind with which I am acquainted will students and general readers find so 
much to instruct and interest them." 

DR. JUL. MULLER, of Halle.— "It i3 the only history of the first six cen- 
turies which truly satisfies the wants of the present age. It is rich in results of 
original investigation." 

HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST, IN CHRONOLOGI- 
CAL TABLES. A Synchronistic View of the EventSj Charac- 
teristics, and Culture of each period, including the History of 
Polity, Worship, Literature, and Doctrines, together with two 
Supplementary Tables upon the Church in America; and an 
Appendix, containing the series of Councils, Popes, Patri- 
archs, and other Bishops, and a full Index. By the lata 
HENRY B. SMITH, D.D., Professor in the Union Theologi- 
cal Seminary of the City of New York. Revised Edition,, 
Folio, $5.00. 

REV. DR. W. G. T. SHEDD.— " Prof. Smith's Historical Tables are ^ best 
that I know of in any language. In preparing such a work, with so much care and 
research, Prof. Smith has furnished to the student an apparatus that will be of 
life-long service to him" 

REV. DR. WILLIAM ADAMS.— "The labor expended upon such a work Is 
immense, and its accuracy and completeness do honor to the research and 
scholarship of its author, and are an invaluable acquisition to our literature." 



